Nanotechnology research
Posted on | June 29, 2009 |
Scientists are beginning to reshape the world one atom at a time using nanoscience and nanoengineering to exercise control over the fundamental building blocks of matter. It seems apparent that nanotechnology research will lead to many of the most important breakthroughs of any science so far. It’s exciting indeed to consider what will come if we are successful at building things the way nature builds them-one atom at a time.
In 1999, a committee comprised of leading scientists from the National Science Foundation said that nanotechnology in the 21st century will have a major impact on the world’s people that will be at least as significant as the development of antibiotics, integrated circuits and man-made polymers was in the 20th. This seems a reasonable prediction indeed, based upon the amount of money allocated and the number of dedicated researchers now involved in nanotechnology research.
To date, nanotechnology research has made meaningful strides such as the development of artificial corneas in Europe; a nanotechnology water pump that imitates the action of cell pores; breakthroughs toward the industrial scale production of nanodevices; the world’s smallest functioning radio; new nanoparticle responses that have important possibilities in electronics; heftier atoms that reduce friction at nanosizes; developments for better diagnosis of prostate cancer; applications to aid the natural gas industry; major progress toward developing infinitesimal machines; nanotubes that knit bulletproof armor; better dry adhesives; processes that are predicted to replace computer hard drives in ten years; terabyte storage for cellular phones and many more. Nanotechnology is already in use in the latest cosmetic products, and in the manufacturing processes for various surface coatings and plastics. Many breakthroughs are pending with important medical applications as well.
One of the most tantalizing expectations from nanotechnology research is that by creating nanometer-scale structures, it suddenly becomes possible to control many fundamental properties of matter including electrical conductivity, color, hardness, melting point, strength and crack-resistance without altering the material’s chemical makeup.
None of these nanotechnology research projects would be possible unless the atom and scanning tunneling microscopes had been developed. These new tools make working at sizes between 1 and 100 nanometers possible. They are as vital to nanotechnology research as the first electron microscopes were to medical research. And additional improvements are likely along with new and better research tools as the years pass.
In our new nanometer universe, electrons don’t flow like streams through electrical conductors. At this size range, an electron’s quantum mechanics appears as a wave, which enables the electrons to do wonderful things such as instantly tunneling through an insulator that under regular circumstances would have brought it to a dead stop. This a action has already been used to build new solid-state lasers that emit light at wavelengths that are suitable for tasks such as monitoring pollutants, optical communication and tracking chemical reactions. If quantum-based computers can ever be developed, they would be billions of times faster than today’s best digital machines.
We are truly blazing new trails in the field of nanotechnology research and engineering. It seems that the only limitation to what we can accomplish is our own imagination.
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