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