Bubble engines

By John Parkinson2010-11-01T00:00:00

Source: J. AM. Chem. Soc.

A tiny little machine, a couple of dozen micrometres long, can be propelled by a jet of oxygen bubbles and controlled by a magnet

A tiny little machine, a couple of dozen micrometres long, can be propelled by a jet of oxygen bubbles and controlled by a magnet, thanks to work by an international research team. The scientists are from China, Germany, and Japan and led by Samuel Sanchez of the Leibniz Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden. The controllable devices the team have developed could find applications in everything from environmental remediation to medical diagnostics.

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