title: Casimir rack and pinion as a miniaturized kinetic energy harvester.
abstract: We study a nanoscale machine composed of a rack and a pinion with no contact, but intermeshed via the lateral Casimir force. We adopt a simple model for the random velocity of the rack subject to external random forces, namely, a dichotomous noise with zero mean value. We show that the pinion, even when it experiences random thermal torque, can do work against a load. The device thus converts the kinetic energy of the random motions of the rack into useful work.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 14395-547, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: MirFaez
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miri
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 14395-547, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Etesami