Processive hand-over-hand motion of homodimeric nanomotors induced by interaction between two monomeric components...

A simple homodimeric nanowalker is presented that is capable of moving processively along an extended periodic track. The unidirectional motion is based on a mechanism that makes use of the interaction between the two monomers and the thermal noise. The effect of the neck linker, which plays a critical role in the previously proposed design, plays an unimportant role in the present system. Except the requirement of a fixed binding orientation of the monomer relative to the track at the minimum of the potential well, the system has no other requirement for the form of the interaction potential between the motor and the track, which is critical to the unidirectional movement of the monomeric motor. Using detailed analyses and numerical simulations, it is shown that the homodimeric nanowalker walks hand over hand along the track with a high efficiency and a high stall force.