塑料电机刚刚打破了一个世纪的工程假设

Electrostatic forces enable low-voltage actuation without relying on rare earth materials.

Nearly every electric motor in modern life, from the fan on your desk to the motor in an electric vehicle, relies on magnetism.一个多世纪以来，磁场一直主导着电机设计，因为静电力被认为对于实际机器来说太弱。

That assumption is now being challenged by a surprising class of materials known as ferroelectric fluids.这些不寻常的液体对电场的反应异常强烈，揭示了科学家曾经认为太小而无法形成物质的效应。

Most people think of electricity creating motion through the attraction between opposite charges.虽然这种静电力确实存在，但它通常缺乏为日常机器提供动力所需的强度。因此，工程师们转向电磁电机，它利用电力产生产生旋转运动的磁场。

但电场的作用不仅仅是拉力。 They can also create a subtle sideways force that acts perpendicular to the applied voltage. In ordinary materials, this effect is so weak that it has attracted little attention.然而，新的实验表明，在铁电流体中，力可以变得惊人地强大，强大到足以克服重力移动液体，甚至驱动没有磁铁或金属转子的原型电机。

为什么这很重要

这项研究的关键进展在于，它通过实验表明，这种被忽视的横向静电力在适当的条件下可以变得意想不到的强大。

力量的增长方式也不同寻常。 In ordinary materials, raising the voltage does not usually produce a large increase in force. With the ferroelectric fluid, a small voltage increase produced a proportional rise in force. Electricity behaves in a fundamentally different way in this material.

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DOI: 10.1038/s44172-025-00530-2

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