New tool for moving nanoobjects

2002/04/29 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Nanoteknologia

Nanotechnology is an incipient science that aims to create objects and machines composed of a few atoms. The first nanoobjects, such as nanotubes, have already been created.

Now, a team of engineers from the University of Texas has developed a new tool to move these nanoobjects. The instruments used so far had very little movement capacity. At most, they could only move on an axis or rotate around an axis. The tool just presented, on the contrary, has the ability to move on the three axes and to rotate around each axis.

To create a tool of these characteristics, engineers have had to join six single-axis tools used so far. However, the parts do not touch each other, but remain united by magnetic force, thus avoiding friction that hinders the movement of nanoobjects.

It is considered that this new technology can be used in teleassistance. In these cases, the surgeon is outside the operating room, often in another hospital, and the orders given are fulfilled by the robot in the operating room. With this new mobility tool you can put the robot exactly where it is needed, more precisely than it had been done so far.