text: An example of artificial ratchets is the work by Serreli et al. (2007). Serreli et al. constructed a nanomachine, a rotaxane, that consists of a ring-shaped molecule, that moves along a tiny molecular axle between two different equal compartments, A and B. The normal, random movement of molecules sends the ring back and forth. Since the rings move freely, half of the rotaxanes have the ring on site B and the other half on site A. But the system used by Serreli et al. has a chemical gate on the rotaxane molecule and the axle contains two sticky parts, one at either side of the gate. This gate opens when the ring is close by. The sticky part in B is close to the gate and the rings pass more readily to A than from A to B. They obtained a deviation from equilibrium of 70:50 for A and B respectively, a bit like the demon of Maxwell. But this system works only when light is shone on it and thus needs external energy, just like molecular demons.