Nanotechnology is a branch of engineering that deals with design using very small particles and with the manipulation of individual molecules.

Scientists at Rice University have designed the world’s smallest car. The nanocar has a length of 3 nanometers and a width of 2 nanometers. A human hair, by comparison, is about 80,000 nanometers in diameter. The wheels are buckyballs, which consist of 60 atoms pure carbon formed like a sphere.

The movement of the nanocar is controlled by electrical fields. Car-shaped molecules can move around on a glass slide at about nine nanomiles per hour. Understanding how these nanocars move could make it easier for researchers to build more sophisticated molecular machines.

To verify that the carborane – carbon and boron – wheels actually turn, the researchers built some nano-tricycles and compared them to the nanocars. The triangles remained stationary, presumably because each of their wheels points in a different direction.

This development is a watershed in so far as constructing successfully a nanocar represents the first step toward molecular manufacturing. One hope is that these tiny machines, invisible to the human eye, will one day be used to deliver drugs into cells, perhaps to destroy cancer or cure other illnesses.