Researchers at King’s College London have developed the world’s smallest engine, a groundbreaking innovation made from a single microscopic particle smaller than a human cell. What makes this discovery even more astonishing is that the tiny particle was heated to 10 million degrees Celsius—a temperature hotter than the surface of the Sun and three times higher than the Sun’s corona. This microscopic engine could reshape our understanding of thermodynamics, nanotechnology, and molecular biology.
To build this unprecedented device, the team used a quadrupole ion trap, also known as a Paul trap, which employs oscillating electric fields to capture and suspend a single charged microparticle in near-perfect vacuum conditions. Once isolated, the researchers applied random electrical noise to the trap’s electrodes, forcing the particle to vibrate intensely and emit large amounts of heat. What fascinated scientists most was the randomness of the particle’s behavior—sometimes, instead of heating up, the particle cooled down, defying classical thermodynamic expectations.
This anomaly highlights the strange rules that govern the microscopic world. In the emerging field of stochastic thermodynamics, conventional laws still hold true on average, but individual events fluctuate unpredictably. As lead researcher Molly Message explained, “Engines and energy transfers at microscopic scales represent a miniature version of the broader universe. Studying these systems could help uncover new physical laws and redefine our understanding of how the universe evolves.”
Interestingly, this research bridges physics and biology. The microscopic engine could serve as a physical analog computer for modeling the complex process of protein folding inside living cells. In the human body, proteins must fold into precise three-dimensional shapes to function properly. Misfolded proteins can cause severe diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cystic fibrosis. Predicting how a protein folds remains one of the biggest computational challenges in modern biology.
In recent years, Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold revolutionized the field by accurately predicting a protein’s final shape from its amino acid sequence—a feat that earned a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. However, AlphaFold cannot simulate the folding process itself, the dynamic journey from the unfolded chain to the final structure. Understanding this pathway is critical to identifying when and how misfolding occurs.
This is where the King’s College London engine could make a difference. Instead of relying on massive digital simulations, the levitating particle physically mimics the folding mechanism, with electrical fields and thermal noise representing the random molecular forces that act on proteins in cells. “The advantage of our method,” Message noted, “is its simplicity. By observing the particle’s motion, we can bypass the enormous computational power needed to model atomic interactions digitally.”
In conclusion, this microscopic engine is more than just a physics marvel—it’s a new frontier in analog computation and biophysical modeling. By merging thermodynamics, quantum physics, and biology, scientists have built a tool that could one day revolutionize drug research, nanorobotics, and energy science. The engine that burns hotter than the Sun may, paradoxically, illuminate the coolest mysteries of life itself.
