Transcript Nanotech
NANOTECH NANOTECHNOLOGY Nanotechnology is the manipulation of atomic particles (atoms and molecules) which are as small as .1 nm. A nanometer is 10 to the -9th m, or one billionth of a meter. A diameter of a human hair is approximately 80,000 nm. History of Nanotechnology 1959 American physicist Richard Feynman lectured, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech, which is often held to have provided inspiration for the field of nanotechnology. “What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them …” Feynman asked. 1974 Norio Taniguchi The Japanese scientist Norio Taniguchi of the Tokyo University of Science used the term "nano-technology" in a 1974 conference, to describe semiconductor processes such as thin film deposition and ion beam milling exhibiting characteristic control on the order of a nanometer. His definition was, "'Nano-technology' mainly consists of the processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by one atom or one molecule.” 1981 The scanning tunneling microscope, an instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic level, was developed by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. History of Nanotechnology 1985 A fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid or tube. Spherical fullerenes have been nicknamed “buckyballs”. Fullerenes were engineered by Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl, who together won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. History of Nanotechnology 1986 K. Eric Drexler releases his book “Engines of Creation”: “The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, which proposed the idea of a molecular "assembler" which would be able to build nanomachines at an atomic level and self-replicate. He also first published the term "grey goo" to describe a doomsday scenario where a hypothetical self-replicating machine would re-arrange all earthly matter until it consumed the planet. Drexler's vision of nanotechnology is often called “Molecular Manufacturing”. History of Nanotechnology 1989 This was the first object assembled atom by atom. 1989 IBM researcher Don Eigler was the first to manipulate atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope. He used 35 Xenon atoms to spell out the IBM logo. He shared the 2010 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for this work.” History of Nanotechnology 1991 A Carbon Nanotube 1991 Sumio Iijima wins the inaugural 2008 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for his creation of carbon nanotubes. History of Nanotechnology 1991 A Carbon Nanotube Carbon nanotubes, some 1000 times smaller than conventional carbon fibers, have tensile strengths 100x that of steel and conduct electricity like metals. They promise a revolution in structural and electrical engineering. History of Nanotechnology 2000 An article written by Bill Joy, then Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems, appears in the April issue of Wired magazine."Why the future doesn't need us” In the article, he argues that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies — robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech — are threatening to make humans an endangered species." Joy argues that developing technologies provide a much greater danger to humanity than any technology before it has ever presented. In particular, he focuses on genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. He argues that 20th century technologies of destruction, such as the nuclear bomb, were limited to large governments, due to the complexity and cost of such devices, as well as the difficulty in acquiring the required materials. He also voices concern about increasing computer power. His worry is that computers will eventually become more intelligent than we are, leading to such dystopian scenarios as robot rebellion. He notably quotes the Unabomber on this topic. After the publication of the article, Bill Joy suggested assessing technologies to gauge their implicit dangers, as well as having scientists refuse to work on technologies that have the potential to cause harm. 2001 In the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Yearbook article titled “A Response to Bill Joy and the Doom-and-Gloom Technofuturists”, Bill Joy was criticized for having technological tunnel vision on his prediction, by failing to consider social factors. History of Nanotechnology 2001 Smalley wrote an article, "Of Chemistry, Love, and Nanobots", for the September issue of the popular science magazine Scientific American, which was a special issue on the topic of nanotechnology. Smalley concluded that the molecular assembler envisioned by Drexler would be impossible to construct due to fundamental, unavoidable problems that arise at the nanoscopic scale. 2001 vs History of Nanotechnology Drexler refuted Smalley’s argument by citing the fact that biological mechanisms are able to assemble molecules in a similar fashion and by noting specific scientific experiments that support his claim. 2001 vs History of Nanotechnology The Royal Society's nanotech report is released. The report was inspired by Prince Charles' concerns about nanotechnology, including molecular manufacturing and Drexler’s “grey goo” apocalyptic prediction. The report states that there is no evidence that autonomous, self replicating nanomachines will be developed in the foreseeable future, and suggests that regulators should be more concerned with issues of nanoparticle toxicology. 2004 History of Nanotechnology Atomically Precise Manufacturing: Questions and Answers released by zyvex labs. “What about the possibility of creating runaway nanobots that destroy all life? Science fiction writers love to use a little pseudo-science to tell a good story, but we shouldn’t confuse pseudo-science with reality. We intend to build machines that help us manufacture things with atomic precision. This is grounded in reality, as evidenced in the research we mentioned earlier. Building self-aware machines that reproduce in the wild is science fiction, and likely to remain that way for many decades, even at the macro scale. Nobody knows how to do this sort of thing even with supercomputers, computerized machine shops, and unlimited electric power, so worrying about doing it in specks too small to see, powered by fuel cells we don’t even know how to make, reproducing themselves by some unknown technology, and programmed by genius programmers that haven’t even built a robot as smart as a worm, seems a waste of worry." 2004 History of Nanotechnology Atomically Precise Manufacturing: Questions and Answers released by zyvex labs. The late Nobel Laureate Professor Rick Smalley said that atomic or molecular assembly won’t work because atom manipulators would be too fat and sticky. Was he right? Actually we agree with Professor Smalley. However, if you look carefully at what he has said, it does not apply to our approach. Smalley believed that complex, floppy molecules cannot be put together with atomic pick and place techniques. Our target is not the kinds of molecules that living creatures make, but rather rigid, crystalline structures comprised of a small number of elements. Our approach will use parallel arrays of molecular-scale tools operating with high precision to create extremely valuable devices and structures with atomic precision. 2004 History of Nanotechnology Molecular assembler finally created – sequence specific peptide synthesis by an artificial small molecule machine. The ribosome builds proteins by joining together amino acids in an order determined by messenger RNA. David Leigh has demonstrated the design, synthesis, and operation of an artificial small-molecule machine that travels along a molecular strand, picking up amino acids that block its path, to synthesize a peptide in a sequence-specific manner. The chemical structure is based on a rotaxane, a molecular ring threaded onto a molecular axle. The ring carries a thiolate group that iteratively removes amino acids in order from the strand and transfers them to a peptide-elongation site through native chemical ligation. The synthesis is demonstrated with ~1018 molecular machines acting in parallel; this process generates milligram quantities of a peptide with a single sequence confirmed by tandem mass spectrometry. 2012 http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i2/Robot-Ribosome.html Videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zroyr-Q9f_o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYYdh84pFng Current Nanotechnology Applications Magnetics - superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. Epoxies / polymers / films /paints /coatings / inks /adhesives Lubricants Carbon nanotubes and graphite nanofibers Sunscreen and antimicrobial gels containing titanium dioxide Superconductors and microchip lithography Reverse Osmosis membranes Custom alloy Solar power Speculation on Future Nanotechnology Applications The Space elevator Quantum computers Human gene therapy and vaccination Self-assembling molecules or SAMs Invisibility cloaks Cancer therapy Age-reversing DNA-repairing nanorobots Cellular drug delivery Rewritable holographic optical mass data nanophotonic storage devices