NANOTECHNOLOGY

By,

Shivani.A(1807047)
Tejasvi.K(1807055)
Clarissa.I(1807013)
INTRODUCTION:
Nanotechnology ("nanotech") is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular,
and supramolecular scale. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology
referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and
molecules for fabrication of macroscale products, also now referred to as molecular
nanotechnology. A more generalized description of nanotechnology was
subsequently established by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which defines
nanotechnology as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from
1 to 100 nanometers. This definition reflects the fact that quantum mechanical
effects are important at this quantum-realm scale, and so the definition shifted from a
particular technological goal to a research category inclusive of all types of research
and technologies that deal with the special properties of matter which occur below
the given size threshold. It is therefore common to see the plural form
"nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to the broad range
of research and applications whose common trait is size. Because of the variety of
potential applications (including industrial and military), governments have invested
billions of dollars in nanotechnology research.

Scientists currently debate the future implications of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology may be able to create many new materials and devices with a vast
range of applications, such as in nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, biomaterials
energy production, and consumer products. On the other hand, nanotechnology
raises many of the same issues as any new technology, including concerns about
the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and their potential effects on
global economics, as well as speculation about various doomsday scenarios. These
concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on
whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted.

ORIGINS:
The concepts that seeded nanotechnology were first discussed in 1959 by renowned
physicist Richard Feynman in his talk There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, in which
he described the possibility of synthesis via direct manipulation of atoms. The term
"nano-technology" was first used by Norio Taniguchi in 1974, though it was not
widely known.

Inspired by Feynman's concepts, K. Eric Drexler used the term "nanotechnology" in

his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, which
proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler" which would be able to build a copy of
itself and of other items of arbitrary complexity with atomic control. Also in 1986,
Drexler co-founded The Foresight Institute to help increase public awareness and
understanding of nanotechnology concepts and implications.
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS:
One nanometer (nm) is one billionth, or 10−9, of a meter. By comparison, typical
carbon-carbon bond lengths, or the spacing between these atoms in a molecule, are
in the range 0.12–0.15 nm, and a DNA double-helix has a diameter around 2 nm. On
the other hand, the smallest cellular life-forms, the bacteria of the genus
Mycoplasma, are around 200 nm in length. By convention, nanotechnology is taken
as the scale range 1 to 100 nm following the definition used by the National
Nanotechnology Initiative in the US. The lower limit is set by the size of atoms
(hydrogen has the smallest atoms, which are approximately a quarter of a nm kinetic
diameter) since nanotechnology must build its devices from atoms and molecules.
The upper limit is more or less arbitrary but is around the size below which
phenomena not observed in larger structures start to become apparent and can be
made use of in the nano device. These new phenomena make nanotechnology
distinct from devices which are merely miniaturised versions of an equivalent
macroscopic device; such devices are on a larger scale and come under the
description of microtechnology.

Several phenomena become pronounced as the size of the system decreases.

These include statistical mechanical effects, as well as quantum mechanical effects,
for example the "quantum size effect" where the electronic properties of solids are
altered with great reductions in particle size. This effect does not come into play by
going from macro to micro dimensions. However, quantum effects can become
significant when the nanometer size range is reached, typically at distances of 100
nanometers or less, the so-called quantum realm. Additionally, a number of physical
(mechanical, electrical, optical, etc.) properties change when compared to
macroscopic systems. One example is the increase in surface area to volume ratio
altering mechanical, thermal and catalytic properties of materials.

These approaches utilize the concepts of molecular self-assembly and/or

supramolecular chemistry to automatically arrange themselves into some useful
conformation through a bottom-up approach. The concept of molecular recognition is
especially important: molecules can be designed so that a specific configuration or
arrangement is favored due to non-covalent intermolecular forces. The Watson–
Crick basepairing rules are a direct result of this, as is the specificity of an enzyme
being targeted to a single substrate, or the specific folding of the protein itself. Thus,
two or more components can be designed to be complementary and mutually
attractive so that they make a more complex and useful whole.

Such bottom-up approaches should be capable of producing devices in parallel and

be much cheaper than top-down methods, but could potentially be overwhelmed as
the size and complexity of the desired assembly increases. Most useful structures
require complex and thermodynamically unlikely arrangements of atoms.
Nevertheless, there are many examples of self-assembly based on molecular
recognition in biology, most notably Watson–Crick basepairing and enzyme-
substrate interactions. The challenge for nanotechnology is whether these principles
can be used to engineer new constructs in addition to natural ones.
CURRENT RESEARCH:
Graphical representation of a rotaxane, useful as a molecular switch.

NANOMATERIALS:
The nanomaterials field includes subfields which develop or study materials having
unique properties arising from their nanoscale dimensions.

 Interface and colloid science has given rise to many materials which may be
useful in nanotechnology, such as carbon nanotubes and other fullerenes,
and various nanoparticles and nanorods. Nanomaterials with fast ion transport
are related also to nanoionics and nanoelectronics.
 Nanoscale materials can also be used for bulk applications; most present
commercial applications of nanotechnology are of this flavor.
 Progress has been made in using these materials for medical applications;
see Nanomedicine.
 Nanoscale materials such as nanopillars are sometimes used in solar cells
which combats the cost of traditional silicon solar cells.
 Development of applications incorporating semiconductor nanoparticles to be
used in the next generation of products, such as display technology, lighting,
solar cells and biological imaging; see quantum dots.
 Recent application of nanomaterials include a range of biomedical
applications, such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, and biosensors.

Bottom-up approaches

These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies.

  DNA nanotechnology utilizes the specificity of Watson–Crick basepairing to
construct well-defined structures out of DNA and other nucleic acids.
 Approaches from the field of "classical" chemical synthesis (Inorganic and
organic synthesis) also aim at designing molecules with well-defined shape.
 More generally, molecular self-assembly seeks to use concepts of
supramolecular chemistry, and molecular recognition in particular, to cause
single-molecule components to automatically arrange themselves into some
useful conformation.
 Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale "write head" to
deposit a chemical upon a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip
pen nanolithography. This technique fits into the larger subfield of
nanolithography.
 Molecular Beam Epitaxy allows for bottom up assemblies of materials, most
notably semiconductor materials commonly used in chip and computing
applications, stacks, gating, and nanowire lasers.

Top-down approaches

These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their assembly.

 Many technologies that descended from conventional solid-state silicon

methods for fabricating microprocessors are now capable of creating features
smaller than 100 nm, falling under the definition of nanotechnology. Giant
magnetoresistance-based hard drives already on the market fit this
description, as do atomic layer deposition (ALD) techniques. Peter Grünberg
and Albert Fert received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007 for their discovery
of Giant magnetoresistance and contributions to the field of spintronics.
 Solid-state techniques can also be used to create devices known as
nanoelectromechanical systems or NEMS, which are related to
microelectromechanical systems or MEMS.
 Focused ion beams can directly remove material, or even deposit material
when suitable precursor gasses are applied at the same time. For example,
this technique is used routinely to create sub-100 nm sections of material for
analysis in Transmission electron microscopy.
 Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale "write head" to
deposit a resist, which is then followed by an etching process to remove
material in a top-down method.

Functional approaches

These seek to develop components of a desired functionality without regard to how

they might be assembled.

 Magnetic assembly for the synthesis of anisotropic superparamagnetic

materials such as recently presented magnetic nano chains.
 Molecular scale electronics seeks to develop molecules with useful electronic
properties. These could then be used as single-molecule components in a
nanoelectronic device. For an example see rotaxane.
 Synthetic chemical methods can also be used to create synthetic molecular
motors, such as in a so-called nanocar.