Tag Archives: charge-controlled speed-regulating nanoclutch

Driving stick with your nanobots

According to a May 24, 2012 news item on Nanowerk, Chinese scientists have developed a ‘clutch’ to control speed in nanomotors. There’s an excellent explanation of the research in a May 29, 2012 posting by Guest_Jim_* on the Overclockers Club website,

Automatic transmission is fairly useful for many people who just need a car that gets them from point A to point B. They may not have as much control during the trip as someone with a manual transmission, but they do not need it. In the nanoscale world though, control is needed, which is why Chinese researchers have created a nanoclutch, as reported by the American Institute of Physics.

Unlike the transmission in your car, this device does not use any gears.

Here’s how it works (from the May 24,2012 news item on Nanowerk),

The nanoclutch consists of two carbon nanotubes (CNTs), one inside the other, separated by a film of water. Electrowetting forces control the friction between the water and the inner and outer walls of the CNTs. When the two tubes are electrically charged, the water confined between them can transmit the torque from the inner tube to the outer tube, and the device is said to be in the engaged state. When the CNTs are uncharged, the device is in the disengaged state.

… Though further work is needed, they say the model may be helpful in designing and manufacturing nanorobots.

You can find the abstract for the paper here  (although the paper itself is behind a paywall). From the abstract,

Importantly, the proposed CNT-CC-SRNC [charge-controlled speed-regulating nanoclutch] can perform stepless speed-regulating function through changing the magnitude of the charge assigned on CNT atoms.

If I read this rightly, it means that they can exert a very high level of control which could prove handy with nanobots. Here’s the full citation for the paper,

J. Appl. Phys. 111, 114304 (2012); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4724344 (5 pages)

Carbon nanotube-based charge-controlled speed-regulating nanoclutch

Zhong-Qiang Zhang, Hong-Fei Ye, Zhen Liu, Jian-Ning Ding, Guang-Gui Cheng, Zhi-Yong Ling, Yong-Gang Zheng, Lei Wang, and Jin-Bao Wang

For anyone who may not be familiar with the slang, ‘driving stick’ means driving with a manual transmission.