Gaub, Hermann

B. A., Moroder, L., Seitz, M., and Gaub Hermann, E. (2002) Single-molecule optomechanical cycle. Science, 296, 1103-1106. 

Our modern society is characterized by a continual quest for miniaturization. Our computers, cell phones, portable music players, calculators, and many other devices have been greatly downsized over the last several years. The ultimate in miniaturization machines made of single molecules. Although this idea sounds like an impossible dream, recent advances place us on the doorstep of such devices. For example, Hermann E. Gaub and his coworkers at the Center for Nanoscience at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich have just reported a single molecule that can do simple work. 

This complication, however, becomes the basis for a new and equally interesting measurement of special interest to elastic protein-based polymers. For our particular interest the usual AFM instrument is modified, as advanced by Hermann Gaub and coworkers,so that the cantilever tip moves in the direction perpendicular to the surface (Figure 9.51 presents a diagram of the instrument). With polymer attached at one end to the surface and at the other to the tip, the force as a function of extension of the molecule is obtained. 

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