Scientist have successfully constructed the world’s smallest car using the parts inside a single molecule. The car has a chassis, axles and a pivoting suspension. It also has a wheels which are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. The whole car itself is no more than 4 nanometers across, slightly wider than a strand of DNA. Compare that to a human hair which is about 80,000 nanometers thick.

As reported by the researchers, other group have also made another car-shaped nanoscale objects. But this nanocar is the first one that rolls “on four wheels in a direction perpendicular to its axles,“, the researchers said.

So just how do you make a nanocar go?

At room temperature, strong electrical bonds hold the buckyball wheels tightly against the gold, but heating to about 200 degrees Celsius frees them to roll.

[ Source ]