MOBILIZING MICROGEARS: We can make gears thinner than a hair. The hard part is getting them to move

摘要

We've been in the business of making things small and portable for a long time. But when it comes to shrinking things down, a team of scientists from Germany, Italy and Spain led by Roberto Di Leonardo decided to go big. They're working with microgears, gears the size of a red blood cell. Specifically, they're looking at ways to make fully functioning, autonomous micromachines, but before they can get there, they need to develop the parts that will compose the whole.