Jump to content

Nanotechnology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RobertBradbury (talk | contribs) at 21:07, 2 August 2004 (add: Taniguchi's invention of 'Nano-Technology' and copyedit: minor changes to History.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

File:Nanogear.jpg
Nanogears

Nanotechnology as a collective term refers to technological developments on the nanometer scale, usually 0.1-100nm. (One nanometer equals one thousandth of a micrometer or one millionth of a millimeter.) The term sometimes applies to any microscopic technology. Due to the small size at which nanotechnology operates, physical phenomena not observed at the macroscopic scale dominate. These nanoscale phenomena include quantum effects and short range forces such as van der Waals forces. Furthermore the vastly increased ratio of surface area to volume promotes surface phenomena. Since the progress of computers is growing expotentially it is believed that it will develop into nanotechnology in the near future.

In fiction and media, "nanotechnology" often refers to hypothetical molecular nanotechnology (also known as "MNT").

History

The first mention of nanotechnology (not yet using that name) occurred in a talk given by Richard Feynman in 1959, entitled There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Feynman suggested a means to develop the ability to manipulate atoms and molecules "directly", by developing a set of one-tenth-scale machine tools analogous to those found in any machine shop. These small tools would then help to develop and operate a next generation of one-hundredth-scale machine tools, and so forth. As the sizes get smaller, we would have to redesign some tools because the relative strength of various forces would change. Gravity would become less important, surface tension would become more important, van der Waals attraction would become important, etc. Feynman mentioned these scaling issues during his talk. Nobody has yet effectively refuted the feasibility of his proposal.

The term 'Nano-Technology' was created by Tokyo Science University professor Norio Taniguchi in 1974 to describe the precision manufacture of materials with nanometer tolerances. In the 1980s the term was reinvented and its definition expanded by K Eric Drexler, particularly in his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. He explored this subject in much greater technical depth in his MIT doctoral dissertation, later expanded into Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation [1]. Computational methods play a key role in the field today because nanotechnologists can use them to design and simulate a wide range of molecular systems.

New materials, devices, technologies

Natural or man-made particles or artifacts often have qualities and capabilities quite different to their macroscopic counterparts. Gold, for example, which is chemically inert at normal scales, can serve as a potent chemical catalyst at nanoscales.

See also (this list should be transformed into text eventually!):


Potential risks

An often cited, but not scientifically tangible worst-case scenario is the so-called grey goo, a substance into which the surface objects of the earth might be transformed by amok-running, self-replicating nano-robots. More realistic are criticisms that point to the potential toxicity of new classes of nanosubstances that could adversely affect the stability of cell walls or disturb the immune system when inhaled or digested. Objective risk assessment can profit from the bulk of experience with long-known microscopic materials like carbon soot or asbestos fibres.

References

Current useful reference works

  • Nanotechnology, electronic journal since 1990, available on web and CD-ROM.
  • Drexler and others have extended the ideas of nanotechnology with two more books, Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution [2] and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation [3]. Unbounding the Future, an easy-to-read book, introduces the ideas of nanotechnology in a not-too-technical way; and Nanosystems provides an in-depth analysis of nanomachines and molecular manufacturing, with thorough scientific analyses of their feasibility and performance. Note another notable work in the same vein: Nanomedicine by Robert Freitas.
One test of the freedom a technology offers is whether it frees people to return to primitive ways of life. Modern technology fails this test; molecular technology succeeds. As a test case, imagine returning to a stone-age style of life—not by simply ignoring molecular technology, but while using it. [4]

Nanotechnology in fiction

Nanotechnology has also become a prominent theme in science fiction [5], for example with the Borg in Star Trek, the game Deus Ex, Alexandr Lazarevich' The NanoTech Network [6], Greg Bear's Blood Music, Michael Crichton's Prey, and Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age.

Important People


Template:Technology-footer

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nanotechnology&oldid=5034271"