A single hydrogen molecule just might be a real-life little engine that could, according to a new study. It would be hard to imagine an engine much tinier.
Physicists in Germany and Spain have demonstrated that a hydrogen molecule dancing between two possible positions can induce regular vibration of a nearby cantilever—essentially a miniature tuning fork made of quartz.
The molecule's effect is no small feat, given the tiny size of a hydrogen molecule (H2) in relation to the cantilever. "A single molecule, actually the smallest molecule we have, is capable of exciting the motion of something that is macroscopic," says physicist Jose Ignacio Pascual, now at the CIC nanoGUNE Consolider research center in San Sebastián, Spain, who led the research while working at the Free University of Berlin. "If the molecule is a person, like me, the cantilever would be something like Mount Everest." Pascual and his Berlin colleagues reported their experimental results in the November 9 issue of Science.
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