NIHERST: Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is a field of science, the goal of which is to control individual atoms and molecules to create devices that are thousands of times smaller than current technologies permit. A nanometre is one billionth of a metre, which means that if you took a full stop at the end of a sentence and enlarged a nanometre to that size the letter next to it would be 80 kilometres high! Therefore we are talking about extraordinarily small measurements. The tiny structures made possible by nanotechnology can have some unexpected and exciting applications.

Manufacturing products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. Thus if atoms in coal are rearranged we can make a diamond and if atoms in sand are added to a few other trace elements computer chips are made.

Today's manufacturing methods at the molecular level are very crude. Techniques such as casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great thundering statistical herds. It can be described as trying to make LEGO blocks designs with boxing gloves on. The LEGO blocks can be pushed into great heaps and piles but they can't be snapped together.

In the future, nanotechnology will facilitate the removal of the boxing gloves, so that the fundamental building blocks of nature can be snapped together easily, inexpensively and in most of the ways permitted by the laws of physics. This will be essential if the revolution in computer hardware is to continue beyond the next decade. In addition, an entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter and more precise will be fabricated.

Within recent times however, nanotechnology has broken its confinement to industry and concentration almost entirely on electronics, computers, telecommunications and materials manufacture and is now being applied to biomedicine as a rapidly advancing field of science which involves experimentation with the construction of tiny particles combining inorganic and biological materials. It is believed that biomedical nanotechnology will soon produce major advances in health care.

With the use of nanotechnology in the coming decades perhaps there could be a supercomputer so small it could barely be seen in a light microscope or perhaps fleets of medical nanorobots smaller than a cell could roam our bodies eliminating bacteria, clearing clogged arteries, and even reversing the ravages of old age. Clean factories could eliminate pollution caused by manufacturing and low cost solar cells and batteries could replace coal, oil and nuclear fuels with clean, cheap and abundant solar power. The possibilities are indeed awesome!