Tufts University chemists may have broken the world record for the smallest electric motor.

Their single-molecule motor, measuring just 1 nm across, is 200 times smaller than the current record holder and 60,000 times thinner than a typical human hair.

The development marks the first time molecular motors have been demonstrated, according to E. Charles H. Sykes, PhD, associate professor of chemistry at Tufts and senior author of research on the motor published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Sykes’s team used the metal tip of a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope to provide an electrical charge to a butyl methyl sulfide molecule placed on a copper surface, according to a press release. By controlling the molecule’s temperature, they were able to impact its motion.

Besides potentially landing them in the Guinness Book of World Records, the team’s motor could someday be used to power medical devices and other electronic products.

“Once we have a better grasp on the temperatures necessary to make these motors function, there could be real-world application in some sensing and medical devices which involve tiny pipes,” Sykes, said in a statement. “Friction of the fluid against the pipe walls increases at these small scales, and covering the wall with motors could help drive fluids along. Coupling molecular motion with electrical signals could also create miniature gears in nanoscale electrical circuits; these gears could be used in miniature delay lines, which are used in devices like cell phones.” 

For more on how they did it, see the video below.

—Jamie Hartford