In the first article dedicated to nanotechnology, I have decided to bring you one of the most promising functions of this technology - the nanocar. A group of researchers at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Rice University in Texas, leaded by Prof. James Tour (which thanks to this technology won the Feynman Prize for experimental nanotechnology this month), has constructed a nanocar, a fully operational car with a chassis, pivitong suspension system, rotating axles, 4 wheels and an engine powered by light or thermal energy, which is just 4 nanometers across. To put you in perspective ot this, if you had to park 20,000 of these nanocars side by side, they would occupy the same width as that of a human hair! As if this wasn't enough, the researchers have also built a nonotruck, capable of carrying payload, The reason for the development of such technology is simple - so that one day we can construct buildings and other large objects with molecular size vehicles.

It took the team 8 years to build the cars, and one of the most difficult parts was to attach the buckyballs (C₆₀ Fullerenes) to the vehicle. The research was time consuming because one of the targets is to have these nanovehicles capable of self assembly, and thus production in extremely high scale would be possible. The target is that within a few decades several of these vehicles' descendants (something like 10²³ or more vehicles) could be used to build skyscrapers from nanoparticles, all working in an orchestrated mode. This will work as with the same concept of the heam molecules in blood, wich each molecule carrying one Oxygen atom to the cell and a carbon dioxide atom back to the lungs. Several hundreds of billions of these atoms allow complex life forms like humans and at the extreme the blue whale, to be able to survive.

The way the nanomachines will be able to build complex structures is by mimicking the action of enzymes, which in their own way are nature's nanomachines, capable of building very complex proteins and molecules. The same principle will be utilized for complex assemblies required.

Another interesting point about the nanovehicles are that they can be powered by either heat or light. By just heating the surface that the nanocars where on, the team managed to make the nanocars move in a straight line untill they hit an object. The light motion works on the principle of photo activation. In both cases, a arm at the side of the nanocar rotates freely, pushing the nanocar forward with each revolution by using the surface as a fulcrum, sort of like a pedal hitting on a surface. Another form of motion is that of nanoworms, in which the molecules wiggle on the surface in a back and forth way when light is shone unto them.