Acceleration of hollow carbon nanospheres by gas leakage: An efficient nanomotor

Abstract

Nanomotors serve as nanoscale engines by converting various energies into mechanical energy. In addition to the huge number of existing nanomotors, we propose a simple nanomotor based on the hollow carbon nanosphere (i.e., fullerene) that is full of gas. We investigate the acceleration of the nanosphere by leakage of gas through a nanopore by molecular dynamics simulations. The nanosphere can be driven to a high speed of 100 m/s under proper simulation conditions, which can be further tuned by temperature, gas density, and pore diameter. We observe rotation of the pore direction during the acceleration process for a nanosphere of different pore diameters. The acceleration process can be well described by the Meshchersky theory. We also simulate the deceleration process of the nanosphere due to the damping force of the gas, which can be analyzed in terms of the kinetic motion of gas molecules. The nanomotor proposed in this work shall be realizable in experiments and may be useful in driving the mechanic motion of fullerenes.