Nanocar Race

Nanocar Race is an international scientific competition with the aim of testing the performance of getting a large molecule suspended over a solid surface to cover the largest distance with the use of a scanning tunneling microscope.

The idea for the race was formulated by scientists Christian Joachim and Gwénaël Rapenne [fr] in Toulouse, France in January 2013 in the ACS Nano journal.

The track of the first competition is a gold surface, equipped with grooves to define race lanes in order to avoid losing vehicles.

[6] It is located in a small enclosure cooled to -269°C under a primary vacuum of 10−10 mbar and is observed simultaneously by four scanning tunneling microscopes (STM)[6] miniaturized for this event and operating on the same surface.

The molecule is remotely driven in a controlled manner by its attraction to the STM tip, which arises from the electrical dipole induced by electrons flowing through its molecular structure when a voltage is applied.

[citation needed] Specific properties of the chemical structure as well as a completely new manipulation technique (without time-consuming imaging steps) rendered this nanocar very fast.

[11] The French team lost sight of its vehicle on its surface area, and was also obliged to abandon, comforting itself with the symbolic prize of "the most elegant car in the competition".