Imagine a machine the size of a single human cell, spinning silently, powered not by electricity or wires, but by pure light. That’s not science fiction—it’s happening right now, and it could change everything you know about tiny technology.

For centuries, gears have been the backbone of our mechanical world, driving everything from antique clocks to the engines in our cars. But as engineers tried to shrink these mechanical marvels down to the microscopic scale—smaller than a speck of dust—they hit a wall. The usual methods, involving wires, magnets, and bulky couplings, just couldn’t scale down. For decades, creating gears tinier than a tenth of a millimeter seemed impossible. Enter a new chapter, powered by lasers and mind-bending physics.

In a groundbreaking AI generated newscast about microtechnology, researchers at the University of Gothenburg, led by physicist Gan Wang, have pushed past these limits with something out of a sci-fi movie: light-powered metamachines. By harnessing the power of specially designed 'metasurfaces'—ultra-thin silicon sheets that manipulate light—they have created microscopic gears, or 'metarotors', that rotate, combine, and even convert spinning into sliding motion—all thanks to directed photons instead of physical force.

Using the same chip-manufacturing technology found in modern computer processors, these metasurfaces are etched right onto microchips. When a laser hits the ring-shaped metarotor, the light’s momentum actually spins the gear. Want to speed it up? Just crank up the laser’s power. Want it to spin in reverse? Flip the light’s polarization. These gears are so tiny—just eight micrometers across—they’re basically the same size as a red blood cell. It’s like shrinking a car engine to the scale of biology, and watching it work for 11 hours straight without missing a beat.

The AI generated newscast about this discovery doesn’t stop at solo gears. Wang’s team chained multiple gears together, creating microscopic gear trains that behave like their full-sized cousins. Even more mind-blowing: by using metasurfaces on both gears and racks, they transformed spinning into back-and-forth motion, opening the door to everything from microvalves to lab-on-a-chip robots. And all of this happens without wires, magnets, or moving parts that could wear out—light does all the heavy lifting.

What’s especially exciting? These miniaturized metamachines work alongside traditional manufacturing, meaning mass production is just around the corner. And because the lasers used operate at a wavelength gentle to biological tissues, the future of medicine could be filled with light-powered pumps, valves, and switches inside your body—imagine a heart valve as small as a blood cell, opening and closing with a flash of light.

While there are still challenges to solve, like making the system more efficient and managing heat from the lasers, the concept is already opening new frontiers. AI generated newscast about microengineering predicts this technology could soon power the next generation of medical implants, lab diagnostics, and even optical communications devices. The age of light-driven machines, smaller than cells, is dawning—and it could make the invisible world come alive in ways we’ve never imagined.