Nano Technology

Nanotechnology is the science of manufacture and developing various materials, devices and structures by

manipulating matter at a nanoscale. A nanometer is about millionth of a millimeter. One millimeter is namely the

smallest measurement visible on a 30 cm ruler scale. Nanotechnology involves the use of technology to create

materials that are 1000 times smaller than anything that can be seen with an optical microscope. This exciting field

has been incorporated in many different platforms like Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Science, Engineering,

Information and Technology.

Nanoparticles

A peculiar kind of physical as well as chemical properties are exhibited by nanoparticles which differ from that of

larger particles of any material. For example the optical properties of Gold Nano-particles are found to behave

differently than their macromolecular counterparts. Macromolecules of Gold appear yellow whereas at the nano-

scale they appear red.

Large molecules of zinc oxide appear white, whereas at the Nanoscale they appear clear. This property is used by

Cosmetic companies to produce clear sunscreen lotions and creams. Thus we observe that the chemical reactivity

is different as the size of the particle changes.

Size and Property change

An important reason that can be attributed to the difference in properties exhibited by structures at the Nanoscale

level is as the size of the particles decrease the ratio of surface area-to-volume of the structure increases. The atoms

are at the surface of the nanoparticle and there is an increased surface area available for reactions to take place.

Preparation of Nanoparticles

There are two main approaches to prepare Nanoparticles in Nanotechnology

Top down approach:

The process of creating Nano-scale materials by physically or chemically breaking down larger materials

Bottom - up Approach:

The process of assembling Nano particles atom-by-atom or molecule-by molecule

which is referred to as self-assembling. Using nanotechnology, scientists are working

to get a better outlook on the self-assembly of atoms and molecules, which happens

naturally in chemical and biological systems.

Nanotechnology in Day-to-day life

Nanotechnology has made itself prominent in most of the industries ranging from

clothing, computing, technology and healthcare. In Sports Industry nanotubes are

incorporated to make lighter sports bikes and other sports equipments. This

technology has been used to create water, fire as well as scratch resistant paints and

waterproof and stain-resistant clothing. Cosmetics Industry has used nanoparticles

which are referred to as nanosomes in face creams which help to retain moisture and

deliver active ingredients to cells especially nanoparticles of zinc oxide which help in

absorbing the harmful UV rays from the sun, while making the sunscreens appear

‘invisible’. In the field of Information and technology Nanotechnology has been used

in the miniaturization of computers and other electronics items capable of efficient

data storage techniques. The Science of Nanotechnology is also being used to protect the environment by producing

efficient solar cells to conserve energy.

Timeline in the History of Nanotechnology

4th Century

The Lycurgus Cup (Rome) is an example of dichroic glass;

colloidal gold and silver in the glass allow it to look

opaque green when lit from outside but translucent red

when light shines through the inside.

9th-17th Centuries

Glowing, glittering “luster” ceramic glazes used in the

Islamic world, and later in Europe, contained silver or

copper or other metallic nanoparticles.

6th-15th Centuries

Vibrant stained glass windows in European cathedrals owed their rich colors to nanoparticles of gold chloride and

other metal oxides and chlorides; gold nanoparticles also acted as photocatalytic air purifiers.

13th-18th Centuries

“Damascus” saber blades contained carbon nanotubes and cementite nanowires—an ultrahigh-carbon steel

formulation that gave them strength, resilience, the ability to hold a keen edge, and a visible moiré pattern in the

steel that give the blades their name.

Year 1857

Michael Faraday discovered colloidal “ruby” gold, demonstrating that nanostructured gold under certain lighting

conditions produces different-colored solutions.

Year 1936

Erwin Müller, working at Siemens Research Laboratory, invented the field emission microscope, allowing near-

atomic-resolution images of materials.

Year 1947

John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain at Bell Labs discovered thesemiconductor transistor and

greatly expanded scientific knowledge of semiconductor interfaces, laying the foundation for electronic devices and

the Information Age.

Year 1950

Victor La Mer and Robert Dinegar developed the theory and a process for growing monodisperse colloidal materials.

Controlled ability to fabricate colloids enables myriad industrial uses such as specialized papers, paints, and thin

films, even dialysis treatments.

Year 1951

Erwin Müller pioneered the field ion microscope, a means to image the arrangement of atoms at the surface of a

sharp metal tip; he first imaged tungsten atoms.

Year 1956

Arthur von Hippel at MIT introduced many concepts of—and coined the term—“molecular engineering” as applied

to dielectrics, ferroelectrics, and piezoelectrics

Year 1958

Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments originated the concept of, designed, and built the firstintegrated circuit, for which

he received the Nobel Prize in 2000.

Year 1959

Richard Feynman of the California Institute of Technology gave what is considered to be the first lecture on

technology and engineering at the atomic scale, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" at an American Physical

Society meeting at Caltech. Feynman gives after-dinner talk describing molecular machines building with atomic

precision.

Year 1965

Intel co-founder Gordon Moore described in Electronics magazine several trends he foresaw in the field of

electronics. One trend now known as “Moore’s Law,” described the density of transistors on an integrated chip (IC)

doubling every 12 months (later amended to every 2 years). Moore also saw chip sizes and costs shrinking with their

growing functionality—with a transformational effect on the ways people live and work. That the basic trend Moore

envisioned has continued for 50 years is to a large extent due to the semiconductor industry’s increasing reliance

on nanotechnology as ICs and transistors have approached atomic dimensions.

Year 1974

Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term nanotechnology to describe precision

machining of materials to within atomic-scale dimensional tolerances on ion-sputter machining.

Year 1977

Drexler originates molecular nanotechnology concepts at MIT

Year 1981

First technical paper on molecular engineering to build with atomic precision

STM invented

Year 1985

Rice University researchers Harold Kroto, Sean O’Brien, Robert Curl, and Richard Smalley discovered

the Buckminsterfullerene (C60), more commonly known as thebuckyball, which is a molecule resembling a soccer

ball in shape and composed entirely of carbon, as are graphite and diamond. The team was awarded the 1996 Nobel

Prize in Chemistry for their roles in this discovery and that of the fullerene class of molecules more generally.

Year 1986

First book published

AFM invented

First organization formed

Year 1987

First protein engineered

First university symposium

Year 1988

First university course

Year 1989

IBM logo spelled in individual atoms

First national conference

Year 1990

First nanotechnology journal

Japan's STA begins funding nanotech projects

Year 1991

Japan''s MITI announces bottom-up "atom factory"

IBM endorses bottom-up path

Japan's MITI commits $200 million

Carbon nanotube discovered

Year 1992

First textbook published

First Congressional testimony

Year 1993

First Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for modeling a hydrogen abstraction tool useful in

nanotechnology

First coverage of nanotech from White House

"Engines of Creation" book given to Rice administration, stimulating first university nanotech center

Year 1994

Nanosystems textbook used in first university course

US Science Advisor advocates nanotechnology

Year 1995

First think tank report

First industry analysis of military applications

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for synthesis of complex three-dimensional structures with DNA

molecules

Year 1996

$250,000 Feynman Grand Prize announced

First European conference

NASA begins work in computational nanotech

First nanobio conference

Year 1997

First company founded: Zyvex

First design of nanorobotic system

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in computational nanotechnology and using scanning probe

microscopes to manipulate molecules

Year 1998

First NSF forum, held in conjunction with Foresight Conference

First DNA-based nanomechanical device

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for computational modeling of molecular tools for atomically-precise

chemical reactions and for building molecular structures through the use of self-organization

Year 1999

First Nanomedicine book published

First safety guidelines

Congressional hearings on proposed National Nanotechnology Initiative

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for development of carbon nanotubes for potential computing device

applications and for modeling the operation of molecular machine designs

Year 2000

President Clinton announces U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative

First state research initiative: $100 million in California

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for computational materials science for nanostructures and for building

a molecular switch

Year 2001

First report on nanotech industry

U.S. announces first center for military applications

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for theory of nanometer-scale electronic devices and for synthesis and

characterization of carbon nanotubes and nanowires

Year 2002

First nanotech industry conference

Regional nanotech efforts multiply

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for using DNA to enable the self-assembly of new structures and for

advancing our ability to model molecular machine systems

Year 2003

Congressional hearings on societal implications

Call for balancing NNI research portfolio

Drexler/Smalley debate is published in Chemical & Engineering News

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for modeling the molecular and electronic structures of new materials

and for integrating single molecule biological motors with nano-scale silicon devices

Year 2004

First policy conference on advanced nanotech

First center for nanomechanical systems

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for designing stable protein structures and for constructing a novel

enzyme with an altered function

Year 2005

At Nanoethics meeting, Roco announces nanomachine/nanosystem project count has reached 300

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for for designing a wide variety of single molecular functional

nanomachines and for synthesizing macromolecules of intermediate sizes with designed shapes and functions

Year 2006

National Academies nanotechnology report calls for experimentation toward molecular manufacturing

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in molecular computation and algorithmic self-assembly, and

for producing complex two-dimensional arrays of DNA nanostructures

Year 2007

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for construction of molecular machine systems that function in the

realm of Brownian motion, and molecular machines based upon two-state mechanically interlocked compounds

Year 2008

Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems released

Protein catalysts designed for non-natural chemical reactions

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in molecular electronics and the synthesis of molecular motors

and nanocars, and for theoretical contributions to nanofabrication and sensing

Year 2009

An improved walking DNA nanorobot

Structural DNA nanotechnology arrays devices to capture molecular building blocks

Design 'from scratch' of a small protein that performed the function performed by natural globin proteins

Organizing functional components on addressable DNA scaffolds

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for experimental demonstrations of mechanosynthesis using AFM to

manipulate single atoms, and for computational analysis of molecular tools to build complex molecular structures

Year 2010

DNA-based 'robotic' assembly begins

Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in single atom manipulations and atomic switches, and for

development of quantum mechanical methods for theoretical predictions of molecules and solids

Year 2011

First programmable nanowire circuits for nanoprocessors

DNA molecular robots learn to walk in any direction along a branched track

Mechanical manipulation of silicon dimers on a silicon surface

Year 2012

The NNI launched two more Nanotechnology Signature Initiatives (NSIs)--Nanosensors and the Nanotechnology

Knowledge Infrastructure (NKI)--bringing the total to five NSIs.

Year 2013

-The NNI starts the next round of Strategic Planning, starting with the Stakeholder Workshop.

-Stanford researchers develop the first carbon nanotube computer.

Year 2014

-The NNI releases the updated 2014 Strategic Plan.

-The NNI releases the 2014 Progress Review on the Coordinated Implementation of the NNI 2011 Environmental,

Health, and Safety Research Strategy.

various products making use of Nanotechnology

Video links:

V1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDUv3hUQ2C8

V2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu6xlf9M8tY

V3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsWD5dJv2OE

V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFpKr9DxQKk&index=11&list=PL5tSvMxGnkdSMpzF9PBJBQ4QjEzFpfP9w

V5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJxhe72nnJs&list=PL5tSvMxGnkdSMpzF9PBJBQ4QjEzFpfP9w&index=7

V6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEH6tDLKcVU

References

• snf.stanford.edu/Education/Nanotechnology.SNF.web.pdf

• www.97.intel.com/en/TheJourneyInside/ExploreTheCurriculum/ EC_Microprocessors/MPLesson4/

• www.nanosense.org/activities/sizematters/properties/SM_ Lesson3Teacher.pdf

• www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=1980

Useful Web portal resources

General

• www.nanoandme.org/home

• www.nano.gov

• www.nisenet.org

• www.nanoyou.eu

• www.nanoed.org

• www.nanozone.org

On Size and Nanorulers

• www.nano.gov/html/facts/The_scale_of_things.html

• www.nanotech-now.com/basics.htm

• www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/nano/lifestyle/122.asp

• www.microcosm.web.cern.ch/microcosm/P10/english/P0.html

Nanotechnology Applications

• www.nnin.org/nnin_edu.html

• www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer

Video links for the Quiz:

V1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDUv3hUQ2C8

V2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu6xlf9M8tY

V3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsWD5dJv2OE

V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFpKr9DxQKk&index=11&list=PL5tSvMxGnkdSMpzF9PBJBQ4QjEzFpfP9w

V5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJxhe72nnJs&list=PL5tSvMxGnkdSMpzF9PBJBQ4QjEzFpfP9w&index=7

V6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEH6tDLKcVU

www.thesciencequiz.com