Artificial molecular and nanostructures for advanced nanomachinery

Abstract

This Feature Article overviews major types of nanoscale machines to reveal common structural features and design rules across different length scales and material systems.

Engineering the Dynamics of Active Colloids by Targeted Design of Metal–Semiconductor Heterojunctions

“…Such fluid flow is usually responsible for self‐propulsion. This way of achieving active nano‐ and microscale autonomous motion is attractive since external fields, such as electric, magnetic, light, or acoustic, do not need to be applied, and moreover, nonequilibrium self‐propelled systems may be the precursors to self‐assembling small‐scale machines, which may be used, for example, for biomedical applications . However, without external fields, the experimentalist cannot easily change the type of dynamical behavior exhibited once motion has been initiated.…”

Recent advances in gold nanoparticles for biomedical applications: from hybrid structures to multi-functionality

“…Recently this interaction has been adopted for use in various multifunctional nanomachines. 136 Here we introduce two recent intriguing proof-of-concept applications, namely active nanorheology and active cargo delivery.…”

Bottom-Up Self-Assembled Supramolecular Structures Built by STM at Solid/Liquid Interface

“…All living organisms are composed of thousands of molecular machines, biomolecular machines, that ensure the correct operation of all functions. The way they work can inspire engineers to develop powerful synthetic molecular machines of molecular machines was promoted by the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry of 2016 [14,49,[49][50][51] who inspired the world of scientists that work in nanotechnology to design molecular machines which move in function of an external stimulus. Ben L. Feringa [52] describes, in his paper, a nanoworld composed of factories with molecular dimensions which are self-repairing, operating with molecular precision and driven by light and chemical energy.…”

“…Specifically, a rotary motor is capable of converting this energy into unidirectional rotary movement in a controlled manner. Rotary molecular motors are commonly composed of three components: the rotor, the axle and the stator [14,49,[56][57][58][59]. Research on rotary molecules has been developed almost over the last two decades, with increasing focus on systems anchored to solid surfaces.…”