Very soon, we would be witnessing a 3D world on microchips. During the beginning of this year, researchers at Penn State University demonstrated the movement of nanomotors in controlled manner inside living cells. And now, experts at the University of Texas Austin have developed one of the fastest spinning and relatively longer shelf life nanomotor.
The newly fabricated nanomotor has an ability of spinning continuously for nearly 15 hours with a speed of 18k rpm. This is an innovative product in the league where the existing nanomotors display an efficiency corresponding for few minutes with a speed window of about 4 rpm to 500 rpm.
These nanomotors have an ability of assimilating and propelling biochemicals while moving through liquid environments. Therefore, in order to see it use in medical applications, researchers coated the nanomotor with a biochemical and initiated the spinning process. They observed that by controlling the spin of the micro device, they were able to control the release of the biochemical. This conclusion helped them in asserting that the device can be employed as an effective tool for delivering medications inside human body, especially for maladies like unwanted tumors or cancer.
This interesting video shows how these nanomotors would move as well as rotate within a human cell.
At the moment, these motors are still in their concept stage however, the researchers envision their more refined roles, like curing cancer cells, administering insulin for diabetics and in performing noninvasive intracellular surgery.
