Credit for this design goes to Eric K. Drexler. I merely made a printable model from the raw data that was supplied with the "nanoengineer-1" software here. Shapeways: outer shell Shapeways: inner shell (net cost price) For an introduction to this kind of objects which I like to call "crystolecules" or more specifically "diamondoid molecular elements" (DMEs) check out my wiki page about them The number of atoms on the outer circumference of the small axle ring is chosen to be incommensurable to the number of atoms on the inside circumference of the bushing ring (they do not divide each other well). The axle thus can't snap into the grooves of the bushing. A little bit of angular energy ripple remains but it is way smaller than the average chunk of thermal energy at room temperature info. This leads to zero static friction and very low dynamic drag (between 2000 and 100000 times less drag than movement in water! See: Superlubrication. This bearing and similar ones do not wear out in normal usage. Damage can only be inflicted by heating them near melting temperature or bombarding them with ionizing radiation (UV-rays / X-rays / gamma-rays). The 3D mesh of internal bonds is harder to damage by bond breaking radiation than biological nano"machine"elements like proteins that are essentially folded 1D chain molecules thus "crystolecules" can survive longer (I didn't use DNA for comparison here since in nature it's mainly used for data storage and neither used a structural element nor as a machine element) Exploratory engineering is the reason why one can be certain that this bearing will work although being unable to produce it yet. These kinds of parts are still far off. If you want too see something more near term I suggest you check out the amazing recent developments in the field of "structural DNA nanotechnology" like this one: Foresight news: Micrometer-scale structures built from DNA bricks. Organic nanorobotics IS coming. Anorganic nanorobotics will follow. Instructions for how to create such models can be found on the instructions section of the DMSE-Tetrapod page.See instructions for the DMSE-Tetrapod: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:13786/#instructions