A Brownian motor is a device which uses the random fluctuations of particles in a solvent and externally supplied energy to achieve directed motion. In my project, I run computer simulations of a polymer in a Brownian motor and see how varying parameters, such as the stiffness of the polymer and characteristics of the motor itself, affect the overall performance of the motor. 

The main goal of this project lies in the possibility that Brownian motors are an effective method of separating polymers by length. The current method used in DNA sequencing involves making several copies of the DNA strand, each termination prematurely, separating them by length, then determining which nucleotide is located at the end of the chain. A new method of performing this separation would decrease the amount of time and money needed to sequence DNA.