This may be from a high-tech factory scene, but this pipeline is only a few nanometers long.

The robot moves slowly along the track and pauses regularly to reach out the arm that carefully picked up the assembly. The arm connects the assembly to the fine construction on the back of the robot, and the robot moves forward and repeats the process - the components are systematically wired together according to the precise design.

This may be from a high-tech factory scene, but this pipeline is only a few nanometers long. The components are amino acids and the product is a small peptide. Robots created by the University of Manchester chemist David Leigh are the most complex molecular-grade machines ever designed.

This is not a case. Leigh is a member of a growing group of molecular "architects." They are inspired to mimic machine-like biomolecules found in living cells. For the past 25 years, these researchers have designed a series of impressive switches, ratchets, engines, thrusters, and more - just as they are nano-scale Lego components that can be integrated into molecular machinery . At the same time, progress is accelerating thanks to improvements in analytical chemistry tools and easier reactions to build large organic molecules.


A molecule "nano cars" along the metal surface

Create molecular shuttle

Many of today's molecular machines go back to a relatively simple piece of equipment built in 1991 by the chemist FraserStoddart, currently employed at Northwestern University. It's a combination called rotaxanes, where the ring molecules are passed by an "axis," and the "axis" is a linear molecule that is plugged by bulky "plugs" at both ends. This particular "axis" contains two chemical groups that bind to the cyclic molecule at each end of the chain. Stoddart found that the ring molecule can move back and forth between these two points, creating the first molecular shuttle.

In 1994, Stoddart improved the design so that the "axis" has two different binding sites. Molecular shuttle exists in solution, changing the acidity of the liquid can force the circular molecule to move from one place to another, so that the molecular shuttle becomes a reversing switch. A similar molecular switch may one day be able to be used to respond to heat, light or specific chemicals or to open "hatches" of nanoscale containers in order to ship drug-laden "cargo ships" into the body at the right time On the sensor.

Along with James Heath from the California Institute of Technology, Stoddart uses millions of rotaxels to create storage devices. Clamped between silicon and titanium electrodes, rotaxanes can be changed from one state to another by current switching and used to record data. The molecular "abacus" is about 13 microns wide and contains 160,000 bits, each bit consisting of hundreds of rotaxanes - a density of about 100 gigabits per square centimeter, which is comparable to today's best commercialization Hard drive comparable.

However, the "switch" is not very awesome and usually falls apart after less than 100 cycles. One possible solution is to load them into hard, porous crystals known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Earlier this year, Robert Schurko and Stephen Loeb from the University of Windsor in Canada confirmed that they were able to package about 1021 molecular shuttles into 1 cm3 of MOF. Last month, Stoddart revealed a different MOF that includes on-off controlled rotaxanes. This MOF is mounted on the electrode, and the rotaxanes can be turned on or off by changing the voltage.

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