Nanotechnology
Does this look like the IBM Logo? Well, in deed, it is and it’s not here because I’m going to write something more about IBM today, again.
Today’s Gyan is not about any individual or a company but about a technology that is promising to change the world.
Welcome to the world of: Nanotechnology – The technology of small…. Very small!
“N is for Nanotechnology and HP is the leader in this technology of limitless possibilities” The HP Invent ad flashes on the TV and leaves you wondering about the technology that boasts to offer a cell phone even for an ant!
It all started with a speech by Richard Feynman – The Nobel laureate “Jack – of – all” scientist. In his speech - “There’s plenty of room at the bottom”, Feynman envisioned small machines working at the atomic level. Then in 1983, an MIT professor Eric Drexler penned a research paper named “Engines of Creation” in which he extended what Feynman envisaged. Later on Scientists like Richard Smalle (who died recently) built upon these concepts to produce some tangible stuff like Nanotubes and bucky balls etc.
As Moore’s law (remember, Intel’s cofounder!) states, “After every 18 months or so, the size of the chip will be halved while its speed doubled.” So far, it had been proved correct. But the cause of concern is that if the size of the chip goes on reducing at such a pace, a quantum mechanics effect called “Tunneling Effect” would come into picture preventing flow of electrons. This will lead to a stage where it won’t be possible to reduce the chip (and hence, the computer) any more.
Centuries back, Charles Babbage built a computer using gears and other mechanical devices. What is a computer!? Basically, it’s just a set of switches. For calculating 3 + 1, appropriate input switches for 3 and 1 would be flicked and the answer/output switch would get set to 4. So, though bulky, it was possible to make such a set of switches using gears, etc. Now, if we were to build a mechanical computer today, it will still be bulky. But what if the teeth of the gears are an atom wide and are put on a shaft made up of carbon nanotube? Then, it will be possible to create a computer in nanometer scales! Even though Mechanical signals are slower than the electrical ones, the distance they would have to cover would be much less, making them more effective than electric signals.
Well, it’s not all fiction. Scientists have successfully created Carbon Nanotubes – tubes having diameter in Nanometers. Nanotube is just another type of Carbon like Diamond, Graphite. Another by – product of nanotechnology is Bucky Ball. It’s a football shaped closed structure of 60 or 70 Carbon atoms. This is the most stable structure of Carbon. The stability can be well imagined by the fact that even when the bucky ball is slammed into a wall at a speed of 37000 Km/h, it would bounce back without any permanent deformation!
Once the Nanocomputer is built using nano gears and nanotubes, it would be used to create Nanorobots. These nanorobots would be, obviously, at the nano level. This is where the Cell – Phone – For – Ant thing comes in picture. Nano robots can be “programmed” to do diverse tasks. Basically, atoms, as we know are the building blocks of any substance. The idea is that it is possible to convert one substance into another substance having same constituent elements just by restructuring these building blocks – the atoms. For example, Petrol or plastic both are, essentially, made up of the same elements i.e. Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. It is just that the way they are bonded and oriented that makes them Petrol or Plastic. So if we can rearrange the atoms in Plastic by some means, we can create Petrol out of Plastic! Machines named Universal Assembler and Universal Disassemblers would “decipher” the structure of the atoms and Assembler would reassemble them to produce the desired substance. So, the specifically designed and programmed nano robots would rearrange the atoms to make absolutely anything out of anything!
It may sound a bit miraculous, but the nano robots could be programmed to kill cells. This means that they can be used not only to kill cancer cells, tumors but also to reach the specific organ which is in danger. The days aren’t long when if someone is diagnosed with Cancer, then all he/she has to do is to take a pill (or something else) and lo and behold, the Cancer is cured over night!
Many companies like HP, Intel, and Samsung are investing a lot of money in the Research and Development of Nanotechnology. In US, startups have already started cropping up, having any form of the word “Nano” in their names!
Companies like Nanosys, Hybrid Plastics, Chemat Technologies, Luxtera are considered amongst the top 10 companies in the world in the field of nanotechnology. Well, you might not have heard of them because all the work they are doing is at the Research level and it is still long way to go before these inventions could be used in practice.
Oh, and by the way… the IBM Logo that you had seen up there, is made up of 35 Xenon atoms and the image is taken by Scanning Tunneling Microscope.
Regards,
Abhishek
Today’s Gyan is not about any individual or a company but about a technology that is promising to change the world.
Welcome to the world of: Nanotechnology – The technology of small…. Very small!
“N is for Nanotechnology and HP is the leader in this technology of limitless possibilities” The HP Invent ad flashes on the TV and leaves you wondering about the technology that boasts to offer a cell phone even for an ant!
It all started with a speech by Richard Feynman – The Nobel laureate “Jack – of – all” scientist. In his speech - “There’s plenty of room at the bottom”, Feynman envisioned small machines working at the atomic level. Then in 1983, an MIT professor Eric Drexler penned a research paper named “Engines of Creation” in which he extended what Feynman envisaged. Later on Scientists like Richard Smalle (who died recently) built upon these concepts to produce some tangible stuff like Nanotubes and bucky balls etc.
As Moore’s law (remember, Intel’s cofounder!) states, “After every 18 months or so, the size of the chip will be halved while its speed doubled.” So far, it had been proved correct. But the cause of concern is that if the size of the chip goes on reducing at such a pace, a quantum mechanics effect called “Tunneling Effect” would come into picture preventing flow of electrons. This will lead to a stage where it won’t be possible to reduce the chip (and hence, the computer) any more.
Centuries back, Charles Babbage built a computer using gears and other mechanical devices. What is a computer!? Basically, it’s just a set of switches. For calculating 3 + 1, appropriate input switches for 3 and 1 would be flicked and the answer/output switch would get set to 4. So, though bulky, it was possible to make such a set of switches using gears, etc. Now, if we were to build a mechanical computer today, it will still be bulky. But what if the teeth of the gears are an atom wide and are put on a shaft made up of carbon nanotube? Then, it will be possible to create a computer in nanometer scales! Even though Mechanical signals are slower than the electrical ones, the distance they would have to cover would be much less, making them more effective than electric signals.
Well, it’s not all fiction. Scientists have successfully created Carbon Nanotubes – tubes having diameter in Nanometers. Nanotube is just another type of Carbon like Diamond, Graphite. Another by – product of nanotechnology is Bucky Ball. It’s a football shaped closed structure of 60 or 70 Carbon atoms. This is the most stable structure of Carbon. The stability can be well imagined by the fact that even when the bucky ball is slammed into a wall at a speed of 37000 Km/h, it would bounce back without any permanent deformation!
Once the Nanocomputer is built using nano gears and nanotubes, it would be used to create Nanorobots. These nanorobots would be, obviously, at the nano level. This is where the Cell – Phone – For – Ant thing comes in picture. Nano robots can be “programmed” to do diverse tasks. Basically, atoms, as we know are the building blocks of any substance. The idea is that it is possible to convert one substance into another substance having same constituent elements just by restructuring these building blocks – the atoms. For example, Petrol or plastic both are, essentially, made up of the same elements i.e. Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. It is just that the way they are bonded and oriented that makes them Petrol or Plastic. So if we can rearrange the atoms in Plastic by some means, we can create Petrol out of Plastic! Machines named Universal Assembler and Universal Disassemblers would “decipher” the structure of the atoms and Assembler would reassemble them to produce the desired substance. So, the specifically designed and programmed nano robots would rearrange the atoms to make absolutely anything out of anything!
It may sound a bit miraculous, but the nano robots could be programmed to kill cells. This means that they can be used not only to kill cancer cells, tumors but also to reach the specific organ which is in danger. The days aren’t long when if someone is diagnosed with Cancer, then all he/she has to do is to take a pill (or something else) and lo and behold, the Cancer is cured over night!
Many companies like HP, Intel, and Samsung are investing a lot of money in the Research and Development of Nanotechnology. In US, startups have already started cropping up, having any form of the word “Nano” in their names!
Companies like Nanosys, Hybrid Plastics, Chemat Technologies, Luxtera are considered amongst the top 10 companies in the world in the field of nanotechnology. Well, you might not have heard of them because all the work they are doing is at the Research level and it is still long way to go before these inventions could be used in practice.
Oh, and by the way… the IBM Logo that you had seen up there, is made up of 35 Xenon atoms and the image is taken by Scanning Tunneling Microscope.
Regards,
Abhishek
posted by Gyan for the Day! | 7:19 pm
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