Pinwheel ’living’ crystals and the origin of life

ANN ARBOR-Simply making nanoparticles spin coaxes them to arrange themselves into what University of Michigan researchers call 'living rotating crystals' that could serve as a nanopump. They may also, incidentally, shed light on the origin of life itself. The researchers refer to the crystals as 'living' because they, in a sense, take on a life of their own from very simple rules. Sharon Glotzer, the Stuart W. Churchill Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering, and her team found that when they spun individual nanoparticles in a simulation-some clockwise and some counterclockwise-the particles self-assembled into an intricate architecture. The team discovered the behavior while investigating methods to make particles self-assemble-one of the major challenges in nanotechnology-without complicated procedures. When the pieces are a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand, normal techniques for building structures are no longer effective. For this reason, researchers like Glotzer are exploring ways to make order develop naturally from disorder, much like what may have occurred at the very beginnings of life.