Nasiri Mojtaba, Miri MirFaez
Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences, P.O. Box 45195-1159, Zanjan 45195, Iran.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2012 Apr;85(4 Pt 1):041102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.85.041102. Epub 2012 Apr 3.
We study a nanoscale system composed of one corrugated plate (rack) and one corrugated cylinder (pinion) coupled via the lateral Casimir force. We assume that the rack moves uniformly. The axle of the pinion experiences frictional torque and random torque due to a surrounding fluid. We show that even in the presence of thermal noise, the device can work against external loads: The pinion rotates with a nonzero average velocity. The device operation becomes less influenced by the noise as the gap between rack and pinion decreases.