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They Built the Single-Atom Engine And It Actually Works

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Physicists have just built the smallest working engine ever created. It’s a heat-powered motor barely larger than the single atom it runs on. Designed and build by a team of experimental physicists led by Johannes Roßnagel (pronounced ‘Rossnahgel’) at the University of Mainz in Germany, the single atom engine is about as efficient as your car at transforming the changing temperature into mechanical energy.

“THE ENGINE HAS THE SAME WORKING PRINCIPLES AS THE WELL-KNOWN [COMBUSTION] CAR ENGINE”

While scientists have previously created several micro-engines consisting of a mere 10,000 particles, Roßnagel’s new engine blows these out of the water by paring down the machine to a singular atom housed in a nano-sized cone of electromagnetic radiation. The project is outlined today in the journal Science.

“The engine has the same working principles as the well-known [combustion] car engine,” Roßnagel says. It follows the same four strokes; expanding then cooling, contracting then heating.

Inside the Engine

Physicists have just built the smallest working engine ever created. It’s a heat-powered motor barely larger than the single atom it runs on. Designed and build by a team of experimental physicists led by Johannes Roßnagel (pronounced ‘Rossnahgel’) at the University of Mainz in Germany, the single atom engine is about as efficient as your car at transforming the changing temperature into mechanical energy.

“THE ENGINE HAS THE SAME WORKING PRINCIPLES AS THE WELL-KNOWN [COMBUSTION] CAR ENGINE”
While scientists have previously created several micro-engines consisting of a mere 10,000 particles, Roßnagel’s new engine blows these out of the water by paring down the machine to a singular atom housed in a nano-sized cone of electromagnetic radiation. The project is outlined today in the journal Science.

“The engine has the same working principles as the well-known [combustion] car engine,” Roßnagel says. It follows the same four strokes; expanding then cooling, contracting then heating.

Inside the Engine

Proposed in 2014, the one-atom engine is now real.

Source: They Built the Single-Atom Engine And It Actually Works

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