A frustrated nanomechanical device powered by the lateral Casimir force

The coupling between corrugated surfaces due to the lateral Casimir force is employed to propose a nanoscale mechanical device composed of two racks and a pinion. The noncontact nature of the interaction allows for the system to be made frustrated by choosing the two racks to move in the same direction and forcing the pinion to choose between two opposite directions. This leads to a rich and sensitive phase behavior, which makes the device potentially useful as a mechanical sensor or amplifier. The device could also be used to make a mechanical clock signal of tunable frequency. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.