Nanotechnology; the
creation and use of materials or devices at extremely small scales. These
materials or devices fall in the range of 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). One nm is
equal to one-billionth of a meter (.000000001 m), which is about 50,000 times
smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Scientists refer to the dimensional
range of 1 to 100 nm as the nanoscale, and materials at this scale are called
nanocrystals or nanomaterials.
The nanoscale is unique
because nothing solid can be made any smaller. It is also unique because many
of the mechanisms of the biological and physical world operate on length scales
from 0.1 to 100 nm. At these dimensions materials exhibit different physical
properties; thus scientists expect that many novel effects at the nanoscale
will be discovered and used for breakthrough technologies.
A number of important
breakthroughs have already occurred in nanotechnology. These developments are
found in products used throughout the world. Some examples are catalytic
converters in automobiles that help remove air pollutants, devices in computers
that read from and write to the hard disk, certain sunscreens and cosmetics
that transparently block harmful radiation from the Sun, and special coatings
for sports clothes and gear that help improve the gear and possibly enhance the
athlete’s performance. Still, many scientists, engineers, and technologists
believe they have only scratched the surface of nanotechnology’s potential.
Nanotechnology is in its
infancy, and no one can predict with accuracy what will result from the full
flowering of the field over the next several decades. Many scientists believe
it can be said with confidence, however, that nanotechnology will have a major
impact on medicine and health care; energy production and conservation;
environmental cleanup and protection; electronics, computers, and sensors; and
world security and defense.
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II
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WHAT IS
NANOTECHNOLOGY?
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To grasp the size of the
nanoscale, consider the diameter of an atom, the basic building block of
matter. The hydrogen atom, one of the smallest naturally occurring atoms, is
only 0.1 nm in diameter. In fact, nearly all atoms are roughly 0.1 nm in size,
too small to be seen by human eyes. Atoms bond together to form molecules, the
smallest part of a chemical compound. Molecules that consist of about 30 atoms
are only about 1 nm in diameter. Molecules, in turn, compose cells, the basic
units of life. Human cells range from 5,000 to 200,000 nm in size, which means
that they are larger than the nanoscale. However, the proteins that carry out
the internal operations of the cell are just 3 to 20 nm in size and so have
nanoscale dimensions. Viruses that attack human cells are about 10 to 200 nm,
and the molecules in drugs used to fight viruses are less than 5 nm in size.
The possibility of
building new materials and devices that operate at the same scale as the basic
functions of nature explains why so much attention is being devoted to the
world below 100 nm. But 100 nm is not some arbitrary dividing line. This is the
length at which special properties have been observed in materials—properties
that are profoundly different at the nanoscale.
Human beings have
actually known about these special properties for some time, although they did
not understand why they occurred. Glassworkers in the Middle Ages, for example,
knew that by breaking down gold into extremely small particles and sprinkling
these fine particles into glass the gold would change in color from yellow to
blue or green or red, depending on the size of the particle. They used these
particles to help create the beautiful stained glass windows found in
cathedrals throughout Europe, such as the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris,
France. These glassworkers did not realize it at the time, but they had created
gold nanocrystals. At scales above 100 nm gold appears yellow, but at scales
below 100 nm it exhibits other colors.
Nanotechnologists are
intrigued by the possibility of creating humanmade devices at the molecular, or
nanoscale, level. That is why the field is sometimes called molecular
nanotechnology. Some nanotechnologists are also aiming for these devices to
self-replicate—that is, to simultaneously carry out their function and increase
their number, just as living organisms do. To some early proponents of the
field, this aspect of nanotechnology is the most important. If tiny functional
units could be assembled at the molecular level and made to self-replicate
under controlled conditions, tremendous efficiencies could be realized.
However, many scientists doubt the possibility of self-replicating
nanostructures.
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III
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APPROACHES TO
NANOTECHNOLOGY
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Scientists are currently
experimenting with two approaches to making structures or devices at the scale
of 1 to 100 nm. These methods are called the top-down approach and the
bottom-up approach.
In the top-down process,
technologists start with a bulk material and carve out a smaller structure from
it. This is the process commonly used today to create computer chips, the tiny
memory and logic units, also known as integrated circuits that operate
computers. To produce a computer chip, thin films of materials, known as a
mask, are deposited on a silicon wafer, and the unneeded portions are etched
away. Almost all of today’s commercial computer chips are larger than 100 nm.
However, the technology to create ever smaller and faster computer chips has
already gone below 100 nm. Smaller and faster chips will enable computers to
become even smaller and to perform many more functions more quickly.
The top-down approach,
which is sometimes called microfabrication or nanofabrication, uses advanced
lithographic techniques to create structures the size of or smaller than
current commercial computer chips. These advanced lithographic techniques
include optical lithography and electron-beam (e-beam) lithography. Optical
lithography currently can be used to produce structures as small as 100 nm, and
efforts are being made to create even smaller features using this technique.
E-beam lithography can create structures as small as 20 nm. However, e-beam
lithography is not suitable for large-scale production because it is too
expensive. Already the cost of building fabrication facilities for producing
computer chips using optical lithography approaches several billion dollars.
Ultimately, the top-down
approach to producing nanostructures is not only likely to be too costly but
also technically impossible. Assembling computer chips or other materials at
the nanoscale is unworkable for a fundamental reason. To reduce a material in a
specifically designed way, the tool that is used to do the work must have a dimension
or precision that is finer than the piece to be reduced. Thus, a machine tool
must have a cutting edge finer than the finest detail to be cut. Likewise the
lithographic mask used to etch away the locations on a silicon wafer must have
a precision in its construction finer than the material to be removed. At the
nanoscale, where the material to be removed could be a single molecule or atom,
it is impossible to meet this condition.
As a result, scientists
have become interested in another vastly different approach to creating
structures at the nanoscale, known as the bottom-up approach. The bottom-up
approach involves the manipulation of atoms and molecules to form
nanostructures. The bottom-up approach avoids the problem of having to create
an ever-finer method of reducing material to the nanoscale size. Instead,
nanostructures would be assembled atom by atom and molecule by molecule, from
the atomic level up, just as occurs in nature. However, assembly at this scale
has its own challenges.
In school, children
learn about some of these challenges when they study the random Brownian motion
seen in particles suspended in liquids such as water. The particles themselves
are not moving. Rather, the water molecules that surround the particles are
constantly in motion, and this motion causes the molecules to strike the
particles at random. Atoms also exhibit such random motion due to their kinetic
energy. Temperature and the strength of the bonds holding the atoms in place
determine the degree to which atoms move. Even in solids at room
temperature—the chair you may be sitting on, for example—atoms move about in a
process called diffusion. This ability of atoms to move about increases as a
substance changes from solid to liquid to gas. If scientists and engineers are
to successfully assemble at the atomic scale, they must have the means to
overcome this type of behavior.
A clear example of such
a challenge occurred in 1990 when scientists from the International Business
Machines Corporation (IBM) used a scanning probe microscope tip to assemble
individual xenon atoms so that they formed the letters IBM on a nickel
surface. To prevent the atoms from moving away from their assigned locations,
the nickel surface was cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero, the
lowest temperature theoretically possible and characterized by the complete
absence of heat. (Absolute zero is -273.15°C [-459.67°F].) At this low
temperature, the atoms possessed very little kinetic energy and were
essentially frozen.
Achieving this
temperature, however, is impractical and uneconomical for the operation of
commercial devices. Nevertheless, the ability of scientists to manipulate atoms
was one of the first indications that the bottom-up approach might work. It
also signaled the emergence of nanotechnology as an experimental science.
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IV
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THE EMERGENCE OF
NANOTECHNOLOGY
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The concept of
nanotechnology originated with American physicist Richard P. Feynman. In a talk
to the American Physical Society in December 1959, entitled “There’s Plenty of
Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics,” Feynman
provided examples of the benefits to be obtained by producing ultrasmall
structures. Feynman calculated that the entire content of Encyclopædia
Britannica could be reduced to fit on the head of a pin, and he estimated
that all of printed human knowledge could be reduced to fit on 35 normal-sized
pages.
Although he did not coin
the term nanotechnology, the visionary Feynman predicted key aspects of today’s
nanotechnology, such as the importance of advanced microscopes and the
development of new fabrication methods. He also emphasized the importance of
combining the knowledge, tools, and methodologies used by physicists, chemists,
and biologists. He pointed to the natural world as an example of how much
information and function can be packed into a tiny volume. A single cell, for
example, can move, perform biochemical processes, and contains within its DNA
molecule the complete knowledge of the design and function of the complex
organism of which it is part.
Feynman believed the
creation of nanoscale devices was possible within the boundaries set by the
laws of physics. He specifically cited the possibility of atom-by-atom
assembly—that is, building a structure (a molecule or a device) from individual
atoms precisely joined by chemical forces. This possibility led to the concept
of a “universal assembler,” a robotic device at nanoscale dimensions that could
automatically assemble atoms to create molecules of the desired chemical
compounds. Such a device, for example, could assemble carbon atoms to form
low-cost, large diamonds, a potentially important industrial material, now used
only in limited quantities due to the high cost of mining and synthesis. Such
synthetic diamonds could have many industrial and consumer applications because
they are lightweight and yet extremely hard, and are electrically insulating
but excellent conductors of heat. The idea of a nanoscale robotic assembler
continues to be promoted by some researchers, although there is considerable
debate whether such a device is indeed possible within the known laws of
chemistry, physics, and thermodynamics.
Nanotechnology began
being promoted as a key component of future technology in the late 1970s. The
term nanotechnology was first used in 1974 by Japanese scientist Norio
Taniguchi in a paper titled “On the Basic Concept of Nanotechnology.” However,
the term was also used by American engineer K. Eric Drexler in the book Engines
of Creation (1986), which had a greater impact and helped accelerate the
growth of the field. By this time, major breakthroughs had been achieved in
industry, such as the formation of nanoparticle catalysts made of nonreactive
metals and used in catalytic converters found in automobiles. These catalysts
chemically reduced noxious nitrogen oxides to benign nitrogen and
simultaneously oxidized poisonous carbon monoxide to form carbon dioxide.
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A
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The Tools of
Nanotechnology
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The scientific community
began serious work in nanoscience when tools became available in the late 1970s
and early 1980s—first to probe and later to manipulate and control materials
and systems at the nanoscale. These tools include the transmission electron
microscope (TEM), the atomic force microscope (AFM), and the scanning tunneling
microscope (STM). See also Microscope.
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A1
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Transmission Electron
Microscope (TEM)
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The TEM uses a
high-energy electron beam to probe material with a sample thickness of less
than 100 nm. The electron beam is directed onto the object to be magnified.
Some of the electrons are absorbed by or bounce off the object, while others
pass through the object and form a magnified image of the material. A
photographic plate, fluorescent screen, or digital camera placed behind the
material records the magnified image. TEMs can magnify an object up to 30
million times. By contrast a conventional optical microscope can magnify
objects up to 1,000 times. TEMs are suitable for imaging objects with
dimensions of less than 100 nm, and they yield information on the size of the
nanostructure, its composition, and its crystal structures.
The TEM is a popular and
powerful instrument within the nanoscience community. Most of the images
published in scientific journals on nanocrystals found in semiconductors were
recorded with this instrument. TEMs can easily visualize individual atoms
within semiconductor nanocrystals.
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A2
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Atomic Force
Microscope (AFM)
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An AFM uses a tiny
silicon tip, usually less than 100 nm in diameter, as a probe to create an
image of a sample material. As the silicon probe moves along the surface of the
sample, the electrons of the atoms in the sample repel the electrons in the
probe. The AFM adjusts the height of the probe to keep the force on the sample
constant. A sensing mechanism records the up-and-down movements of the probe
and feeds the data into a computer, which creates a three-dimensional image of
the surface of the sample. Thus, the exact surface topography can be recorded
with precise height information, and individual atoms in the surface can be
imaged. The lateral resolution of this technique, however, is sometimes poor.
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A3
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|
Scanning Tunneling
Microscope (STM)
|
An STM uses a tiny
probe, the tip of which can be as small as a single atom, to scan an object. An
STM takes advantage of a wavelike property of electrons called tunneling.
Tunneling allows electrons emitted from the probe of the microscope to
penetrate, or tunnel into, the surface of the object being examined. The rate
at which the electrons tunnel from the probe to the surface is related to the
distance between the probe and the surface. These moving electrons generate a
tiny electric current that the STM measures. The STM constantly adjusts the
height of the probe to keep the current constant. By tracking how the height of
the probe changes as the probe moves over the surface, scientists can get a
detailed map of the surface. The map can be so detailed that individual atoms
on the surface are visible.
In addition to imaging,
AFM and STM are also useful for manipulating nanostructures. In this regard,
the tips resemble “arms” that can be used to manipulate individual atoms. For
example, not only did scientists at IBM move and align individual atoms on a
flat surface so that the atoms spelled IBM, but also they used an STM to
position 48 iron atoms into a circular structure, where interesting phenomenon
could be visually inspected. This manipulation was only possible at extremely
low temperatures.
Although the AFM and STM
are capable of moving atoms and individual nanostructures, the process is very
slow and time-consuming. Scientists hope to develop this technique further by
using massive arrays of scanning tips instead of just using one. Such arrays
could help speed up the manipulation of atoms, although it would also require
extensive micro- and nanofabrication.
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C
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Synthesizing Carbon
Molecules and Other Developments
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Several other
developments in the 1980s and 1990s stimulated interest in the potential of
nanotechnology. In 1985 chemists at Rice University in Houston, Texas, led by
Richard E. Smalley, discovered they could make perfectly round carbon molecules
consisting of 60 carbon atoms. The scientists nicknamed these synthetic
molecules buckyballs, or fullerenes, for their resemblance to the geodesic
domes designed by architect R. Buckminster Fuller. Being able to make synthetic
carbon was exciting for several reasons. Carbon is the fundamental building
block of material in living things. Carbon atoms also combine easily with other
atoms and can form more compounds than any other element. Carbon atoms also
form strong bonds, which can help form strong but relatively lightweight
materials. But the special properties of the synthetic buckyballs were even
more exciting. When combined with other substances buckyballs could act in a
variety of ways. They could be conductors of electricity, insulators,
semiconductors, or superconductors. Their possible applications seemed immense.
Then in 1991 Japanese
physicist Sumio Iijima published a widely noticed report that appeared to build
on the buckyball discovery. While studying fullerenes, Iijima reported finding
a tubular version known as a carbon nanotube, a thin, extraordinarily stiff
form of carbon that has been described as “the strongest material that will
ever be made.” In 1993 two researchers working independently—Iijima in Japan
and American physicist Donald S. Bethune of the IBM Almaden Research Center in
California—developed a nanotube that was only a single atom thick. The
breakthrough had enormous implications. The use of these so-called single-wall
nanotubes as electronic circuits, for example, could lead to computer chips
containing billions of transistors, as compared with the 42 million transistors
that fit on current chips. Computers could become ever smaller, faster, and
more powerful. And that was only one of a variety of possible applications.
The increasing focus of
the scientific community on the nanoscale led the United States government in
1999 to identify nanotechnology as a research priority. In 2000 President Bill
Clinton announced the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) with a budget of
$442 million. Shortly thereafter, the leading industrial nations of the world
followed the U.S. lead. By 2003 the United States, the European Union (EU), and
Japan had major nanotechnology initiatives with funding levels approaching $1
billion per year to promote the development of the field. In addition, other
countries throughout the world launched nanotechnology initiatives with
aggregate funding at a similar level to the three leading government
initiatives. In the U.S. budget approved in 2003, $3.7 billion was approved for
nanotechnology research over the next four years.
In addition to the
support of federal governments, state governments also became active in support
of nanotechnology. Examples in the United States include the New York
Nanotechnology Initiative, the California Nanosystems Institute, Pennsylvania’s
Nanotechnology Institute, and the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative. An international
example is NanoBioNet of the state of Saarland, Germany.
By 2003 significant
commercial products had already been developed based on nanotechnologies. The
devices on computers known as read-write heads, which read data from a computer
hard disk and also write data to the disk, were built from multilayer
nanometer-thick film. These films increased the sensitivity of the read-write
heads so that many more bits of data can be packed on the surface of the hard
disks. Consequently, the memory capacity found in modern personal computers
dramatically increased, and relatively inexpensive 60-gigabyte hard disks
became available in competitively priced computers.
Another nanotechnology
product line was nanoparticle formulations of zinc or titanium oxides that
absorb harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun but are invisible to the eye.
This technology has enabled cosmetic companies to offer skin protection in
their products without compromising appearance. The usually white skin creams
become transparent upon application because the nanoparticles are too small to
scatter light. Nanocoating technology on clothes has yielded the most
stain-resistant clothes ever produced. Olympic-level swimmers have been aided
in setting many new world records by using swimsuits with clothing fibers
bonded to hydrophobic (not compatible with water) molecules. These nanocoated
swimsuits create less friction with water so swimmers can swim faster.
In the early 21st
century corporations began to identify nanoscience and nanotechnology as a
field of development unto itself with many common concepts and approaches that
could impact broadly across multiple product lines. It became common for major
high-tech corporations to have a specific manager or leading scientist assigned
to the development of corporate nanotechnology strategy, research, and
development. In addition to the larger corporations, the field also began to
yield many small start-up companies. As of 2003 most of these companies were
involved in nanomaterials production, simple nanodevice fabrication, and the
production of tools used to research and manufacture at the nanoscale. In the
investment community, an increasing number of venture capitalist enterprises
began to follow nanotechnology closely, and the first funds devoted solely to
investment in nanotechnology companies were created.
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V
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CHALLENGES CONFRONTING
NANOTECHNOLOGY
|
A major challenge facing
nanotechnology is how to make a desired nanostructure and then integrate it
into a fully functional system visible to the human eye. This requires creating
an interface between structures built at the nanometer scale and structures
built at the micrometer scale. A common strategy is to use the so-called
“top-down meets bottom-up” approach. This approach involves making a
nanostructure with tools that operate at the nanoscale, organizing the
nanostructures with certain assembly techniques, and then interfacing with the
world at the micrometer scale by using a top-down nanofabrication process.
However, technical
barriers exist on the road toward this holy grail of nanotechnology. For
example, the bottom-up approach generally yields nanocrystals of 1 nm, a dimension
that is too small for current nanofabrication techniques to interact with. As a
result, interfacing a nanocrystal with the outside world is a highly complex
and expensive process. A novel procedure must be developed to overcome this
barrier before many of the synthetic nanostructures can become part of
mainstream industrial applications.
Also, as the size of the
nanostructure gets increasingly thinner, the surface area of the material
increases dramatically in relation to the total volume of the structure. This
benefits applications that require a big surface area, but for other
applications this is less desirable. For example, it is undesirable to have a
relatively large surface area when carbon nanotubes are used as an electrical
device, such as a transistor. This large surface area tends to increase the
possibility that other unwanted layers of molecules will adhere to the surface,
harming the electrical performance of the nanotube devices. Scientists are
tackling this issue to improve the reliability of many nanostructure-based
electronic devices.
Another important issue
relates to the fact that the properties of nanocrystals are extremely sensitive
to their size, composition, and surface properties. Any tiny change can result
in dramatically different physical properties. Preventing such changes requires
high precision in the development of nanostructure synthesis and fabrication.
Only after this is achieved can the reproducibility of nanostructure-based
devices be improved to a satisfactory level. For example, although carbon
nanotubes can be fashioned into high-performance transistors, there is a
significant technical hurdle regarding their composition and structure. Carbon
nanotubes come in two “flavors”; one is metallic and the other is semiconducting.
The semiconducting flavor makes good transistors. However, when these carbon
nanotubes are produced, mixtures of metallic and semiconducting tubes are
entangled together and so do not make good transistors. There are two possible
solutions for this problem. One is to develop a precise synthetic methodology
that generates only semiconductor nanotubes. The other is to develop ways to
separate the two types of nanotubes. Both strategies are being researched in
labs worldwide.
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VI
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FUTURE IMPACT OF
NANOTECHNOLOGY
|
Nanotechnology is
expected to have a variety of economic, social, environmental, and national
security impacts. In 2000 the National Science Foundation began working with
the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to address nanotechnology’s
possible impacts and to propose ways of minimizing any undesirable
consequences.
For example, nanotechnology
breakthroughs may result in the loss of some jobs. Just as the development of
the automobile destroyed the markets for the many products associated with
horse-based transportation and led to the loss of many jobs, transformative
products based on nanotechnology will inevitably lead to a similar result in
some contemporary industries. Examples of at-risk occupations are jobs
manufacturing conventional televisions. Nanotechnology-based field-emission or
liquid-crystal display (LCD), flat-panel TVs will likely make those jobs
obsolete. These new types of televisions also promise to radically improve
picture quality. In field-emission TVs, for example, each pixel (picture
element) is composed of a sharp tip that emits electrons at very high currents
across a small potential gap into a phosphor for red, green, or blue. The
pixels are brighter, and unlike LCDs that lose clarity in sunlight,
field-emission TVs retain clarity in bright sunlight. Field-emission TVs use
much less energy than conventional TVs. They can be made very thin—less than a
millimeter—although actual commercial devices will probably have a bit more
heft for structural stability and ruggedness. Samsung claims it will be
releasing the first commercial model, based on carbon nanotube emitters, by
early 2004.
Other potential job
losses could be those of supermarket cashiers if nanotechnology-based,
flexible, thin-film computers housed in plastic product wrappings enable
all-at-once checkout. Supermarket customers could simply wheel their carts
through a detection gateway, similar in shape to the magnetic security systems
found at the exits of stores today. As with any transformative technology,
however, nanotechnology can also be expected to create many new jobs.
The societal impacts from
nanotechnology-based advances in human health care may also be large. A
ten-year increase in human life expectancy in the United States due to
nanotechnology advances would have a significant impact on Social Security and
retirement plans. As in the fields of biotechnology and genomics, certain
development paths in nanotechnology are likely to have ethical implications.
Nanomaterials could also
have adverse environmental impacts. Proper regulation should be in place to
minimize any harmful effects. Because nanomaterials are invisible to the human
eye, extra caution must be taken to avoid releasing these particles into the
environment. Some preliminary studies point to possible carcinogenic
(cancer-causing) properties of carbon nanotubes. Although these studies need to
be confirmed, many scientists consider it prudent now to take measures to
prevent any potential hazard that these nanostructures may pose. However, the
vast majority of nanotechnology-based products will contain nanomaterials bound
together with other materials or components, rather than free-floating
nano-sized objects, and will therefore not pose such a risk.
At the same time,
nanotechnology breakthroughs are expected to have many environmental benefits
such as reducing the emission of air pollutants and cleaning up oil spills. The
large surface areas of nanomaterials give them a significant capacity to absorb
various chemicals. Already, researchers at Pacific Northwestern National
Laboratory in Richland, Washington, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, have
used a porous silica matrix with a specially functionalized surface to remove
lead and mercury from water supplies.
Finally, nanotechnology
can be expected to have national security uses that could both improve military
forces and allow for better monitoring of peace and inspection agreements.
Efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons or to detect the
existence of biological and chemical weapons, for example, could be improved
with nanotech devices.
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VII
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NANOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH
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Major centers of
nanoscience and nanotechnology research are found at universities and national
laboratories throughout the world. Many specialize in particular aspects of the
field. Centers in nanoelectronics and photonics (the study of the properties of
light) are found at the Albany Institute of Nanotechnology in Albany, New York;
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; the University of California at Los
Angeles (UCLA); and Columbia University in New York City. In addition, Cornell
hosts the Nanobiotechnology Center.
Universities with
departments specializing in nanopatterning and assembly include Northwestern
University in Evanston, Illinois, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in Cambridge. Biological and environmental-based studies of nanoscience
exist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Rice University in
Houston, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Studies in nanomaterials
are taking place at the University of California at Berkeley and the University
of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Other university-affiliated departments
engaged in nanotechnology research include the Nanotechnology Center at Purdue
University in West Lafayette, Indiana; the University of South Carolina
NanoCenter in Columbia; the Nanomanufacturing Research Institute at
Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Center for Nano
Science and Technology at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. By 2003
more than 100 U.S. universities had departments or research institutes
specializing in nanotechnology.
Other major research
efforts are taking place at national laboratories, such as the Center for
Integrated Nanotechnologies at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and
at Los Alamos National Laboratory, both in New Mexico; the Center for Nanophase
Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee; the Center
for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New
York; the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory outside
Chicago, Illinois; and the Molecular Foundry at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
Internationally, the
Max-Planck Institutes in Germany, the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS) in France, and the National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology of Japan are all engaged in nanotechnology
research.
Contributed By:
Peidong Yang
David E. Luzzi
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
