title: Recent Progress on Man-Made Inorganic Nanomachines.
abstract: The successful development of nanoscale machinery, which can operate with high controllability, high precision, long lifetimes, and tunable driving powers, is pivotal for the realization of future intelligent nanorobots, nanofactories, and advanced biomedical devices. However, the development of nanomachines remains one of the most difficult research areas, largely due to the grand challenges in fabrication of devices with complex components and actuation with desired efficiency, precision, lifetime, and/or environmental friendliness. In this work, the cutting-edge efforts toward fabricating and actuating various types of nanomachines and their applications are reviewed, with a special focus on nanomotors made from inorganic nanoscale building blocks, which are introduced according to the employed actuation mechanism. The unique characteristics and obstacles for each type of nanomachine are discussed, and perspectives and challenges of this exciting field are presented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Kwanoh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Materials Science and Engineering Program, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Jianhe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Materials Science and Engineering Program, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaobin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.|Materials Science and Engineering Program, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Fan
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D066192:Manufacturing Industry / Q000639:trends*; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D055616:Microtechnology / Q000379:methods; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry; D052898:Optical Tweezers
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon
keywords: assembly; inorganic nanoparticles; nanomachines; nanomanipulation; nanomotors; nanotweezers