Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology

Before I can really address this topic properly I have to answer “What is Nanotechnology and why the hype?” Currently the term nano has been thrown around a lot in recent years. Mostly this is the desire of researchers to grab the research money that is out there and using buzz words do help turn heads. Nanotechnology is a grab bag of different fields of science. It takes from condensed-matter physics, engineering, molecular biology and large swaths of chemistry. Even the government was convinced by the hype to create The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a multi-agency program intended to provide a big funding boost to nanoscience and engineering.

But what constitutes nanotechnology research? Even scientists have a hard time with that question. "It depends on whom you ask," Stanford biophysicist Steven M. Block told at a symposium on nanotechnology. "Some folks apparently reserve the word to mean whatever it is they do as opposed to whatever it is anyone else does."

But what most scientists seem to agree on is what is considered Nanotechnology. Which is the future manufacture of molecular size materials, devices and possible machines. On the other hand many leading scientist that are pushing for the development of nanotechnology see it as molecular manufacturing or, more simply, building things one atom or molecule at a time with programmed nanoscopic robotarms.

The reason we have this great interest in using nanostructures stems comes from the idea that superior electrical, chemical, mechanical or optical properties may be achieved at these smaller scales. Also biological and medicine research in the nanotechnology area is on its way. One company, Quantum Dot Corporation, has already has been doing research in semiconductor quantum dots as labels in biological experiments, drug-discovery research, and diagnostic tests, among other applications. Nano is receiving enthusiastic scrutiny from some big companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Led by IBM, Lucent Technologies, and Hewlett-Packard, along with Samsung and Siemens , big industrial companies are pumping significant sums into nanotech research, as are governments around the world.

Buckyballs--those soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules discovered in 1985 by a team led by Rice University's Richard E. Smalley--are roughly 1 nm in diameter. Carbon nanotubes are about 1.4 nm thick. The latest entrants: slightly fatter nanotube-like wires made from silicon, gallium nitride, and other semiconducting materials. These nanotubes are showing some of the most potential for use in both research and applications ranging from computers to ultra high strength cables.