Machines the size of a grain of sand could move half a kilogram, thanks to a
microtransmission system built by the same group at Sandia National Laboratories
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that brought us microengines (Technology, 4 February
1995, p 20).
Sandia has made microengines that turn at hundreds of thousands of
revolutions per minute. The transmission has six gear sets, giving a total gear
reduction ratio of almost 3 million to one, which in theory should make the
system powerful enough to move 0.5 kilograms.
“We believe this is by far the most force ever generated by a polysilicon
micromechanical device,” says Steve Rodgers, one of the researchers.
