Slashdot Mirror
Nanotech or Nano-Not?
LabRat007 writes "CNN has a story on the current status and future of nanotechnology. This infromative overview on the technology talks about current research and when we can expect nano-parts for our geek gear."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
While some are all go for nanotechnology, others see potential for danger. Remember, people were afraid of vaccines, but they were also afraid of CFC's.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Drexler wrote Engines of Creation back in 1986. This is where a lot of the ideas of world destruction by a mass of self assembling nanobots - aka "grey goo" - came from. It is a rather scary thought, but its rather unlikely, IMHO. Btw, we are already using nanotechnology in PC's, according to Scientific American.
I've discovered a remarkable proof, but this margin is too small to contain it...
All the emphasis on the "potential dangers" of nanobots or "gray goo" just drives me nuts. Sure, the image of a nanobot doing manufacturing or curing cancer can be compelling, and also frightening. But not only are we no where near such technology, the fear of it stigmatizes genuine nanotech being done right now, which often has no relation to tiny robots.
Nanotechnology now means any process for determining structure or composition at a molecular scale. It means creating fuels or drugs with carefully selected chemical compositions. It means creating self-healing structure in which tears tend to seal simply because the material is made that way. It means making computer chips faster and smaller by growing very small features directly onto the chip, using molecular carbon or silicon.
These applications are much more real than self-replicating nanobots which can take over the world, and some of them could easily be on all our desks in five years. Do a Google search on Field emission displays: new flat panel displays, as bright as a CRT display at a fraction of the power usage, with a better image and wider field of view than an LCD.
Could there be environmental dangers even in these applications? Sure, any new material has potential problems, and nanomaterials should be studied all the more closely because of our limited experience with them. But we're a long, long way from nanobots which can self-replicate and take over the world, and the nanotech industry as it stands now is no more dangerous than any other advanced materials.
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
I'm a Masters student working with a UHVVTSTM that is... an Ultra High Vacuum ( 10^-12 Torr) Variable Temperature (works from 3K-300K) Scanning Tunneling Electron Microscope. Here's a quick lesson for those of you who are a little brighter than the audience the article is targeted for. If you study Quantum Mechanics, you probually studied an effect called Barrier Tunneling, in which a particle can exist in a forbidden region in a high potential and there is the probability of measuring that particle on the other side of the barrier. This is the basis for STM. Consider the vacuum in the chamber as a barrier. Now, take a very sharp needle (Say Tungsten) that is nearly atomically sharp. Now, if you bring the tip very close to a surface (Say Silicon) then even though there is a gap between the Tungsten tip and Silicon surface, electrons orbiting atoms in the tungsten can "tunnel" across into orbits of Silicon atoms. This tunneling of electrons is what is the tunneling current and is a purely Quantum Mechanical effect. By measuring this current (nano - pico Amps!!) and varying the gap to make the current constant, we can now move this tip over this atomic surface. My monitoring the changing current and moving the tip in or out as the tip is scanned (much like a CRT scans electrons on your TV screen) we can see an image of the electron configuration of the silicon surface! From this we can infer what the structure is. It's reall quite neat. If course, I am not going into many details here, but if you are interested in learning more, contact me: steven.horn at stevenhorn.kicks-ass.net My thesis title is atomic manipulation using a scanning tunneling microscope. I study organic molecules on silicon surfaces hoping to develop new nano-devices. I also study it because it's really cool.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
"Georgia Tech physics professor Uzi Landman said he expects it will be five to 10 years before nanoscale "parts" are common in electronic devices; perhaps five to eight years for medical uses. " This prediction seems similar to the claims made by the MEMS (Micro-electrical Mechanical Systems) researchs a few years ago. There is a huge jump between something working in a laboratory, and placing it on the manufacturing line. The two major obstacles facing the manufacturing end (facing the researchers as well, for that matter)for nano-tech are similar to MEMS, as they are the precurser for nano-tech. For one thing, assembling things at the "nano", or even the "micro" level, is that unless you are making a crystal, things move around quite a bit from where you want them. Even with crystals, it must either be a single crystal or defect free - rather difficult to do. The other major problem is testing and debugging a design. The MEMS researchers both at my current university and where I went for undergrad were consistently plauged by the fact that there is no feasible way to debug thier designs. This is why they're still working out basic gears and motors. On the subject of nano-probes, while this does seem likely to occur in a couple of years given its relative simplicity, the search for a bio-compatible crystalline substance that does not dissolve and can be easily manipulated at the atomic level I don't believe has been accomplished. One final point, while they may be assembled at -455 degrees F, they will be operating at room temperature where atomic vibrations, movements, and the like will be highly prevalent. I'm curious to see how this is dealt with. All in all, while I think that this technology will be introduced into the mainstream well within our lifetime, 5-10 years seems rather short term.
The problem is that the work that actually gets done, in materials or computing or other fields, isn't as "exciting" to the media as the fanciful ideas presented in Hollywood and science fiction. Why talk about a new kind of flat-panel display or the technology that will create your next computer, when you can shock the public into fearing tiny robots that will disassemble the world? I'm a big fan of science fiction, but I must admit that I'm incredibly disappointed in their portrayal of the field.
I'm a physics student myself, an undergrad doing some research which makes limited use of carbon nanotubes, and both of us probably got our real knowledge of nanotechnology from our classes and work in the field. With more applications in general use, the situation may improve, but the media definitely has to stop portraying fantasy as fact. Otherwise, real research could easily get a bad rep--there are already people calling for a ban on all nano research, including a lot of work which they don't understand is relatively harmless.
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman