Our new approach, which we call surface nanomachining, combines the processing methods of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) with the tools of electron beam nanofabrication to create three-dimensional nanostructures that move (and thus can do new types of things). This opens exciting new avenues of exploration and new fields of application; we have only just begun to follow them. Our first applications are enabling new types of investigations in physics and biology at very short length scales.

One might say that there is one "person" doing nanotechnology today-- mother nature herself. Every day, in every E. Coli bacteria, at the base of every flagellum there is a remarkable little rotary motor that spins to propel the organism. This remarkable device (figure at right) is driven by proton gradients, has its own shaft seals through the cell membrane, can achieve ~50% efficiency, and can spin bidirectionally up to a couple thousand r.p.m. When we know how to design and mass-produce structures like this artificially, it will be clear that the era of nanotechnology has truly arrived. 'Til then, the fact that the gene encodes the commonplace, mass-production of such atomically precise "devices" taunts us, urging us onward in our explorations!