Hi everybody, Prof. Raymond Kapral <http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/%7Erkapral/> will be visiting the Boston area to give a talk as part of the shared Harvard/MIT/BU theoretical chemistry seminar series; the talk title and abstract are included below. Prof. Kapral will be visiting the Harvard campus on the afternoon of Tuesday, Dec. 7 (i.e., TOMORROW!!!). We apologize for the short notice, but there may be free slots for student/postdoc meetings between 2:45 and 5:00pm. Please let us know if you are interested to meet the speaker and when you would be available. We will do our best to make it happen. To the non-Aspuru's: Please also forward this eMail to your groups and other potentially interested people. The seminar will be on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 4:00 pm in MIT 56-154. Best regards, Johannes ----------------------------------------------- Dr. Johannes Hachmann Postdoctoral Fellow Aspuru-Guzik Research Group Harvard University Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology 12 Oxford St, Rm M104A Cambridge, MA 02138 USA eMail: jh(a)chemistry.harvard.edu ----------------------------------------------- ________________________________ Chemically-Powered Nanomotors 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.