Synchronizing thousands of 100% efficient rotors in a macrodevice for harvesting noise is unapprehended. Thermodynamically, realizing a thermal gradient at the atomic scale is critical. Harvesting free thermal energy or noise by resonance has a hidden clause; either externally activating a directed self-powered motion or constructing a nanoscale power supply. To accomplish this, we combined two rotor concepts, Brownian rotor, BR, and power stroke, PS, rotors available in living systems in two planes of a single molecule. Quantum tunneling images reveal how a radio-wave guided synchronization of PS-BR combination tweaks rotational dynamics of a rotor to bypass the necessity of temperature gradient (ΔT). Live imaging of thermal noise movement as electron density between a pair of molecular planes helped in optimizing the rotor design. The rotor's monolayer harvests heat from the liquid's Brownian noise and electromagnetic noise, together delivering a finite, usable power. The chip supplies the power if we wet the surface or shine electric noise.

Time crystal was conceived in the 1970s as an autonomous engine made of only clocks to explain the life-like features of a virus. Later, time crystal was extended to living cells like neurons. The brain controls most biological clocks that regenerate the living cells continuously. Most cognitive tasks and learning in the brain run by periodic clock-like oscillations. Can we integrate all cognitive tasks in terms of running clocks of the hardware? Since the existing concept of time crystal has only one clock with a singularity point, we generalize the basic idea of time crystal so that we could bond many clocks in a 3D architecture. Harvesting inside phase singularity is the key. Since clocks reset continuously in the brain–body system, during reset, other clocks take over. So, we insert clock architecture inside singularity resembling brain components bottom-up and top-down. Instead of one clock, the time crystal turns to a composite, so it is poly-time crystal. We used century-old research on brain rhythms to compile the first hardware-free pure clock reconstruction of the human brain. Similar to the global effort on connectome, a spatial reconstruction of the brain, we advocate a global effort for more intricate mapping of all brain clocks, to fill missing links with respect to the brain’s temporal map. Once made, reverse engineering the brain would remain a mere engineering challenge.

Graphical abstract