Itsy chain turns bitsy gears
Peter Weiss
Barry Ritchey/Sandia
The 19th-century chain drive remains popular in bicycles, car engines, and industrial machinery. Now, designers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., have reinvented the component at a microscopic scale. Ed Vernon and his colleagues sculpted thin layers of silicon and silicon dioxide to make a chain that moves gears in a system where the links and teeth are the size of biological cells. Such tiny gadgetry might someday operate shutters for tiny cameras, Vernon notes.
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Further Readings:
2002. World's smallest microchain drive fabricated at Sandia. Sandia National Laboratories press release. Jan. 14. Available at http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2002/chain.htm.
Sources:
George E. Vernon
Sandia National Laboratories
Electromechanical Engineering Department 2614
Albuquerque, NM 87123-0329
From Science News, Volume 161, No. 7, February 16, 2002, p. 102.
