Efficient nano motor cleverly harnesses light

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Labs and the University of California have made a new nanoscale motor that can drive a disc 4000 times bigger than itself. It is powered via the so-called “plasmonic effect” and could be used to manipulate ultra-small objects like DNA and for powering nanoelectromechanical machines (NEMS). At merely 100 nm across the motor looks like a tiny windmill, inspiring the researchers to dub it a “light mill”.
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In recent years researchers have discovered that they can increase the interactions between light and matter by taking advantage of the electrons that oscillate collectively at the surface of metals – called “surface plasmons”. Light fields are enhanced when they are resonant with these plasmons – an effect that has already been successfully used in techniques like single-molecule detection and surface-plasmon enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).