A four wheel drive car just 1 nm long which uses electrons as fuel has been developed by researchers at the University of Groningen, who hope it might find uses in nanometre-sized robotics or as tiny transporters to move molecules around.
The vehicle has an organic carbon-based frame and four wheel or rotor parts connected to the body via carbon-carbon double bonds. It navigates its copper surface when a nearby scanning tunnelling microscope fires electrons at the bonds, causing them to break and reform the other way around – causing the wheels to turn and the car to move forward.