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Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new method for making tiny rotors from pure diamond crystal, which could help study complex molecules such as proteins. The researchers used a laser-based lathe system to spin a diamond piece while hitting it with the laser until it was left with a perfectly smooth cylinder, only 0.7 millimeters wide. The rotor can already spin at 6 million revolutions per minute and has other advantageous characteristics including extremely high thermal conductivity and radio frequency transparency. Previously, most rotors in use were made of yttria-stabilized zirconia, which fall apart if they spin much faster than several million revolutions per minute.
