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Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Cargo Loading onto Kinesin Powered Molecular Shuttles
Published on: November 3, 2010
Catalytic motors for transport of colloidal cargo
Shakuntala Sundararajan1, Paul E Lammert, Andrew W Zudans
1Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
Abstract:
Autonomous micro- and nanomotors should, in principle, deliver materials in a site-directed fashion, powering the assembly of dynamic, nonequilibrium superstructures. Here we demonstrate that catalytic Pt-Au nanomotors can transport a prototypical cargo: polystyrene microspheres. In addition, motors with Ni segments can overcome both Brownian orientational fluctuations and biased rotation of the rod-sphere doublet to enable persistent steerable uniaxial motion in an external magnetic field. Assuming a cargo-independent motive force, the speeds are inversely proportional to the Stokes resistance, which we compute using a completed double-layer boundary integral equation. In addition, we demonstrate motors transporting cargo via chemotaxis toward a H2O2 fuel source.
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