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University of California at Berkeley researchers have created the world's smallest-of-its-kind engine, which they say could one day be used as an efficient power source for mobile electronics. 

It is called a rotary internal combustion engine. It is made of steel, although the researchers hope to use it as a prototype, out of which one day they will create an even smaller engine made with silicon. This one is not much bigger than a stack of pennies. 

What it does is produce a motion from a controlled combustion, that much like a car's engine, is produced when a fuel is combined with oxygen in a chamber.  

The energy released makes the movement of a rotor, which can be hooked up to any number of devices, like the gear systems that make wheels turn in automobiles. 

But unlike most cars, where combustion takes place with pistons and cylinders, this engine has a flat, peanut-shaped chamber and a triangular rotor. As the rotor rotates, its edges partition areas of the chamber, where the combustion occurs. The Mazda Rx-7 is an example of one of the few cars that run with this technology. 

This mini-engine runs on liquid hydrocarbon fuels, such as butane or propane. 

With a shot's glass-full of the fuel, the engine can keep working for two hours. Like a car's engine, the engine created at UC Berkeley produces carbon dioxide and water. According to the researchers, however, the discharges would not create substantial pollution -- about the same amount created by one and a half persons at rest. 

They are, however, developing a small catalytic converter to minimize exhaust.