Scientists from the Netherlands have developed an improved nanocar or molecule that moves using four atomic wheels.

Dr. Ben Feringa, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Groningen, revealed in the journal Nature their version of the nanocar that is propelled by electron and can move on a surface instead of solution. And at one nanometre, it is smaller than an earlier nanocar built by Rice University scientists measuring 3 to 4 nanometres across.

Feringa said it is a crucial step in creating real, advanced nano-machines "that could do such things as travel through our veins to kill cancer cells," according to Discovery News.

Feringa's team described the four-wheel-drive nanocar as a molecule with four rotary units comprising a few atoms. Electrons fired from an electron microscope causes an interaction of the rotor atoms and copper surface; the rotors turn like paddle wheels moving the molecule forward.

Feringa's nanocar were originally just molecular motors that functions like artificial windmills. The team attached the motors to a synthetic molecule to create the nanocar. Because the motors are controlled individually, the nanocar resembles a four-wheel drive car.

The previous nanocar, developed by Rice University Professor James Tour in 2005, moves when four carbon atom wheels rotate on a heated gold surface.

Feringa and his team plans to improve further their nanocar so it can take larger steps, be controlled, works on room temperature and moves on a longer trajectory.

Feringa's team includes Karl-Heinz Ernst, a professor at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Syuzanna Harutyunyan, a synthetic organic chemistry assistant professor at the University of Groningen, and Nathalie Katsonis, an assistant professor of biomolecular nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Watch the video demonstrating the movement of the nanocar: