Nanotechnology, the Inevitable Future

By: Amrutha Tummala, Tech Blog Editor

Flying cars that can get us places faster than we ever dreamed. Advanced robots that follow precise commands to the dot. Spacecrafts capable of carrying humans to the outer bounds of the solar system. They all embody our hopes for the future of technology. But the true future of technology is not macroscopic like these cars, robots, and spacecrafts; rather, it is microscopic. In fact, it is even tinier than the smallest organism in the world!

Nanotechnology is used in solar panels.

Image by American Public Power Association - Unsplash

Defining Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology mostly revolves around the study and control of materials that can be measured with the nanoscale, which includes materials 1 to 100 nanometers long. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. For scale, the human hair is between 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers wide. An atom measures between 0.1 to 0.5 nanometers in diameter. A human red blood cell is 6,000 to 8,000 nanometers across.

Nanotechnology only includes materials that are man-made. Otherwise, much of chemistry and molecular biology would count as nanotechnology.

A good definition of nanotechnology has been provided by the U.S National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI):

“... the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel nanotechnology applications. Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering, and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale...

...Unusual physical, chemical, and biological properties can emerge in materials at the nanoscale. These properties may differ in important ways from the properties of bulk materials and single atoms or molecules.”

“Nanotechnology only includes materials that are man-made”

Properties of Nano-materials

One of the reasons nanotechnology fascinates people is that the properties of some materials can differ greatly at the nanoscale. For instance, metals with grain sizes of around ten nanometers can be as much as seven times harder and tougher than ordinary metals with grain sizes in the hundreds of nanometers. What causes these drastic changes in properties?

In two words, the answer is quantum physics. The properties of a substance are the average of all of the quantum forces acting upon its atoms. At sizes as small as the nanoscale, you reach a point where averaging will no longer work. Quantum effects have a greater impact as you go smaller and smaller, affecting the optical, electric, and magnetic behavior of a material. Some materials that are not reactive in their larger form are reactive when produced in their nanoscale form. This variation in the properties of materials lets scientists tailor materials to their needs and vastly increases their options.

Applications of Nanotechnology

By exploiting the unique properties of materials at the nanoscale, scientists are using nanotechnology to gradually improve many fields of industry. Here are examples of advancements in a myriad of fields, all made possible by nanotechnology:

Making clothes more resistant to staining, wrinkling, and bacterial growth
Saving large amounts of fuel by making cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, and spacecrafts lighter in weight
Improvements in personal care products, such as the use of nanotechnology for years in sunscreen that protects from the sun while remaining invisible on the skin
Making magnetic random access memory (MRAM) possible, which allows computers to boot almost instantly and save data quickly and effectively
Flexible, foldable, rollable, bendable, and stretchable electronics being integrated into a variety of products
Better imaging and diagnostic tools in the medical field, enabling earlier diagnosis, more individualized treatment, and higher therapeutic success rates

Nanotechnology plays a role in the semiconductor industry.

Image by carls9893 - FreeImages

The list goes on and on. After twenty years of basic nanoscience research and more than fifteen years of focused research and development under the NNI, nanotechnology is delivering a variety of benefits to society in both expected and unexpected ways. In the quest to improve their products by creating smaller components and better performance materials at a lower cost, the number of companies that will manufacture nanoproducts will grow rapidly and soon make up the bulk of all companies across many industries. Although truly revolutionary nanotech products are still years in the future, nanotechnology has already proved that it is the future of many fields of tech and industry.