Nanotechnology is next big thing in electronics and manufacturing
By Jennifer Bails
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 21, 2005
The next big thing could come in the smallest package imaginable -- so tiny, in fact, it is invisible to the naked eye.
Nanotechnology is the science of working with things that are one-billionth of a meter, or more than 1,000 times narrower than the diameter of a human hair.
This nascent, interdisciplinary field is expected to become a trillion-dollar industry within the next decade, said CMU physics professor Randall Feenstra, who studies material properties at the nanoscale.
Federal support for nanotech research and development has risen sixfold, from $116 million in 1997 to an estimated $961 million in 2004, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative, an inter-agency federal program that coordinates U.S. nanoscience investment.
The promise of nanotechnology lies in how materials behave in the size range of 1 to 100 nanometers, where they can only be seen with the most powerful microscopes, McCullough said. At that size, the laws of quantum mechanics that apply to bulk materials are no longer in effect.
Normal, macroworld properties break down, and as a result, materials take on strange chemical and physical traits. For example, ultrasmall cylinders of carbon atoms called carbon nanotubes are one-sixth the weight of steel but about 100 times stronger.
In a 1959 lecture to the American Physical Society, late physicist Richard Feynman said, "There's plenty of room at the bottom" -- meaning scientists could manipulate atoms and molecules, then the smallest known particles, to do humanity's bidding.
That is essentially the goal of nanotechnology -- to figure out how to take advantage of the remarkable properties of nanomaterials to design new and useful devices, molecule by molecule, atom by atom.
"Nanotechnology is more than simply making things smaller," said CMU engineering professor Ed Schlesinger, who directs the university's Data Storage Systems Center. "This is the scale where we can really control the properties of materials."
The next challenge is to engineer robust machines from the growing number of nano-sized building blocks such as carbon nanotubes and tiny, fluorescent crystals called quantum dots, Pitt engineering professor Hong Koo Kim said.
"We have reached the fundamental limits of the evolution of microtechnology," said Kim, who co-directs Pitt's Institute of NanoScience and Engineering. "Now we need to prepare for more revolutionary technology, but we can't do that without understanding the unique phenomena that happen at the nanoscale."
Kim is trying to integrate optic and electronic devices on a nano-sized chip made from semiconductor material. Schlesinger is working to use nano-components to develop data storage technology that can hold about 1 trillion bits of information a square inch. At that size, it would be possible to store a black-and-white-photo of every person on earth on a compact disc-sized disk.
Among the other nano-gadgets in the works are thin films to measure blood-sugar levels and other body chemicals, tiny cages of atoms to trap pollutants and chemical weapons in water and soil, next-generation cancer treatments, minuscule computers and cell phones and longer-lasting tennis balls.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_295352.html
By Jennifer Bails
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 21, 2005
The next big thing could come in the smallest package imaginable -- so tiny, in fact, it is invisible to the naked eye.
Nanotechnology is the science of working with things that are one-billionth of a meter, or more than 1,000 times narrower than the diameter of a human hair.
This nascent, interdisciplinary field is expected to become a trillion-dollar industry within the next decade, said CMU physics professor Randall Feenstra, who studies material properties at the nanoscale.
Federal support for nanotech research and development has risen sixfold, from $116 million in 1997 to an estimated $961 million in 2004, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative, an inter-agency federal program that coordinates U.S. nanoscience investment.
The promise of nanotechnology lies in how materials behave in the size range of 1 to 100 nanometers, where they can only be seen with the most powerful microscopes, McCullough said. At that size, the laws of quantum mechanics that apply to bulk materials are no longer in effect.
Normal, macroworld properties break down, and as a result, materials take on strange chemical and physical traits. For example, ultrasmall cylinders of carbon atoms called carbon nanotubes are one-sixth the weight of steel but about 100 times stronger.
In a 1959 lecture to the American Physical Society, late physicist Richard Feynman said, "There's plenty of room at the bottom" -- meaning scientists could manipulate atoms and molecules, then the smallest known particles, to do humanity's bidding.
That is essentially the goal of nanotechnology -- to figure out how to take advantage of the remarkable properties of nanomaterials to design new and useful devices, molecule by molecule, atom by atom.
"Nanotechnology is more than simply making things smaller," said CMU engineering professor Ed Schlesinger, who directs the university's Data Storage Systems Center. "This is the scale where we can really control the properties of materials."
The next challenge is to engineer robust machines from the growing number of nano-sized building blocks such as carbon nanotubes and tiny, fluorescent crystals called quantum dots, Pitt engineering professor Hong Koo Kim said.
"We have reached the fundamental limits of the evolution of microtechnology," said Kim, who co-directs Pitt's Institute of NanoScience and Engineering. "Now we need to prepare for more revolutionary technology, but we can't do that without understanding the unique phenomena that happen at the nanoscale."
Kim is trying to integrate optic and electronic devices on a nano-sized chip made from semiconductor material. Schlesinger is working to use nano-components to develop data storage technology that can hold about 1 trillion bits of information a square inch. At that size, it would be possible to store a black-and-white-photo of every person on earth on a compact disc-sized disk.
Among the other nano-gadgets in the works are thin films to measure blood-sugar levels and other body chemicals, tiny cages of atoms to trap pollutants and chemical weapons in water and soil, next-generation cancer treatments, minuscule computers and cell phones and longer-lasting tennis balls.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_295352.html
