Engineers dream of motors made out of single molecules that could jump-start the production of machines on the molecular level. However, simply modeling them after larger motors has been extremely difficult.

Now, researchers from France and the University of Ohio have collaborated on a new approach and created the first compact molecular motor that can spin both clockwise and counterclockwise.

“What must be done [to create a working molecular motor] is to start from the bottom, to forget about the macroscopic scale,” said Christian Joachim, one of the lead authors of this project from the Centre d’Elaboration Materiaux et d’Etudes Structurales in Toulouse, France.