THIS WEDNESDAY:
Greater boston area theoretical chemistry seminar
12/08/10 4:00PM
MIT Building 56, Room 154
Chemically-Powered Nanomotors
Prof. Raymond Kapral
http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/~rkapral/
University of Toronto
Biological systems make frequent use of molecular motors to perform tasks
such as active transport of material in the cell, cell locomotion and
biochemical synthesis. Recently, chemists have fabricated a variety of
synthetic nanomotors that use chemical reactions to effect self propulsion.
Because of their potential applications, such synthetic nanodevices are
being investigated actively. Like their biological counterparts, these
nanomotors operate in the regime where they are subject to strong molecular
fluctuations from the environments in which they move, and their motion is
governed by viscous forces. The first talk will describe recent work on
various types of synthetic nanomotors, the means by which they move and some
of their possible uses. The second talk will focus on chemically-powered
nanodimer motors. In particular the following topics will be considered:
simulations of their dynamics, microscopic mechanisms for their motion, how
to design motors that beat fluctuations, nonomotor efficienecy and their
collective motions.
--
Joel Yuen-Zhou
PhD candidate in Chemical Physics
Harvard University CCB,
12 Oxford St. Mailbox 107,
Cambridge, MA, USA.