The Ultimate in Miniaturized Machinery

Making machines smaller and more powerful has been the cornerstone of the electronic industry. Now it’s becoming easier for the miniaturization to be done by the machines themselves. Researchers at the University of Manchester have come up with the first “Molecular Robot”.

The individual robot is capable of manipulating a single molecule and is made up of just 150 carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms. A group of such robots operate together by carrying out chemical reactions in special solutions. These reactions are controlled and programmed by scientists to perform the basic tasks.

The system can be likened to that of Lego bricks. Each robot can be placed together with others to build something altogether different. The best part about such small robots is that the demand for materials reduces considerably to perform the same tasks.

The science project may seem complex, but is based on simple chemical processes.  As per Prof Leigh, the robots are assembled and operated using chemistry. This is the science of how atoms and molecules react with each other and how larger molecules are constructed from smaller ones. It is the same sort of process scientists use to make medicines and plastics from simple chemical building blocks.