The popular media were abuzz in 2004 with a new term, nanotechnology, which refers to the manufacture of materials and devices at an extremely small scale. The prefix nano derives from the Greek nanos, meaning “dwarf.” A nanometre is one-billionth of a metre, and nanotechnology is generally considered to be the realm of objects having a dimension of 100 nanometres or less. (The thickness of a human hair is about 80,000 nanometres, and a strand of DNA is 2.5 nanometres wide.) At this scale, particles or thin films of some materials have chemical and physical properties much different from those the material has in bulk. The idea of working at this superminiature level was suggested by American physicist Richard Feynman as early as 1959, and the term nanotechnology was introduced by researcher Norio Taniguchi in Japan in the 1970s. Nanotechnology holds promise for significant advances in a wide variety of applications, from devices that clean the Earth’s atmosphere to new means of conquering disease and the aging process.
An example of nanoscale devices already at work are the carbon nanotubes, discovered by Sumio Iijima in Japan in 1991, in use in “jumbotron” lamps installed in many sports stadiums. Other practical applications of nanoscale technology include materials used in computer disk drives, automotive sensors, tires, land-mine detectors, and solid-state compasses. The technology is used in the manufacture of dressings for burns and wounds, water filtration, catalytic converters, and sunscreens.
Some of the most exciting nanoscale technology has no practical application as yet. Such technology includes the self-assembling “nano-elevators” reported by developers at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2004, in which two interlocking molecules (imagine a three-pin plug set in a three-hole socket) can be made to pop in and out. It is expected that within the next few years, nanotechnological solar cells in roof tiles will provide an economical way to increase the generation of electricity by solar power and thereby reduce pollution from conventional electric-power plants. Even more exciting prospects are the implantation of nanoscale devices into the human body—to deliver and control drugs or to identify cancer cells—and environmental applications, such as sensors to detect chemicals and toxins in the air. The U.S. government has provided hefty funding for developing nanotechnology for use against terrorism. One potential application would be the use of carbon nanotubes to sense minuscule amounts of nerve agents in the air and—applying nanoscale devices on a megascale basis—to incorporate the sensors as part of a national system to monitor the atmosphere over the U.S. continuously for the presence of biological pathogens or dangerous chemicals.
As with any new technology, nanotechnology has characteristics that are frightening to some, and creepy little machines have already infiltrated science-fiction writing—for example, the body-altering “nanoprobes” used by Star Trek’s Borg or the malevolent self-replicating “nanobots” in Michael Crichton’s 2002 novel Prey. Perhaps a more realistic worry—as suggested in some toxicology reports over the past few years—is that nanoparticles could prove harmful to living creatures. Nevertheless, nanotechnology is expected to become a $1 trillion industry by 2015.