A team of scientists led by Northwestern University has taken the next step in the evolution of electric motors by creating a motor that is not visible to the naked eye. This groundbreaking research has resulted in the development of an electric motor on a molecular scale. With a width of only 2 nanometers, the molecular motor is the first to be produced en masse in abundance, making it easy to make, operate quickly and produce no waste products.
Electric vehicles, powered by macroscopic electric motors, have become a common sight on the streets and highways of Chicago. These quiet and environmentally friendly machines have a long history dating back nearly 200 years, when physicists first began experimenting with electric motors.
This early work, which demonstrates the ability to convert electrical energy into unidirectional motion at the molecular level, has far-reaching implications for materials science and medicine. In particular, the electric molecular motor could be used in conjunction with biomolecular motors within the human body, offering new possibilities for medical treatments.
“We have taken molecular nanotechnology to another level,” said Northwestern’s Sir Fraser Stoddart, co-author of the study and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in the design and synthesis of molecular machines. “This elegant chemistry uses electrons to effectively drive a molecular motor, much like a macroscopic motor. While this area of chemistry is in its infancy, I predict one day these tiny motors will make a huge difference in medicine.”
Stoddart, Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is a co-corresponding author of the study. The research was done in close collaboration with Dean Astumian, a molecular machine theorist and professor at the University of Maine, and William Goddard, a computational chemist and professor at the California Institute of Technology. Long Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow in Stoddart’s lab, is the paper’s first author and a co-corresponding author.
The study and a corresponding news brief were published on Jan. 11 by the journal Nature.
Learn more in the Northwestern Now article, “Now on the molecular scale: electric motors.”