Top gear
Top gear
Steve Bush Sandia National laboratories has made a three million-to-one gearbox for its famous micromotor. One revolution of the input gear generates a calculated displacement of the output gear of only 0.08nm. Output force is enough to move a 0.5kg object, said researcher Steve Rodgers: ‘We believe this is by far the most force ever generated by a polysilicon micromechanical device.’ According to Sandia, micromachines need power in larger amounts than first thought because of the adhesion and static friction. One reason for these is that, after a gear is etched out of silicon, the surface oxidises into SiO2, which binds to local stationary surfaces.