This article is a planned update to everything you knew about the most powerful tools humankind could ever create: nanotechnology. Peter Diamandis, a renowned entrepreneur and engineer, head and founder of the X-Prize Foundation, Planetary Resources and other initiatives, outlined his vision of what is happening in laboratories around the world, and what potential applications of nanotechnology await in healthcare, energy, environmental protection environment, materials science, data storage and processing.
Since artificial intelligence has received a lot of attention lately, very soon we should hear about incredible breakthroughs in the field of nanotechnology.
The origins of nanotechnology
Most historians believe that the originator of the term is the physicist Richard Feynman and his 1959 speech: "There is plenty of room below." In his speech, Feynman envisioned the day when machines could be so reduced and so much information encoded in tiny spaces that incredible technological breakthroughs would begin from that day.
But the book by Eric Drexler, "Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology", really revealed this idea. Drexler came up with the idea of self-replicating nanomachines: machines that other machines build.
Since these machines are programmable, they can be used to build not only more of these machines, but whatever you want. And since this construction takes place at the atomic level, these nanorobots can take apart any kind of material (soil, water, air, whatever) atom by atom and assemble anything from it.
Drexler drew a picture of a world where an entire library of Congress could fit on a chip the size of a sugar cube and where environmental scrubbers scrub contaminants right out of the air.
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But before we explore the possibilities of nanotechnology, let's go over the basics.
What is "nanotechnology"?
Nanotechnology is science, engineering and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which ranges from 1 to 100 nanometers. Essentially, they are manipulating and manipulating materials at the atomic and molecular level.
For you to understand, let's imagine what a nanometer is:
- The ratio of the Earth to the children's cube is approximately the ratio of a meter to a nanometer.
- This is a million times less than the length of the ant.
- The thickness of a sheet of paper is approximately 100,000 nanometers.
- The diameter of the red blood cell is 7000-8000 nanometers.
- The diameter of the DNA chain is 2.5 nanometers.
A nanobot is a machine that can build and manipulate things precisely and at the atomic level. Imagine a robot that can manipulate atoms like a child can manipulate LEGO bricks, constructing anything (C, N, H, O, P, Fe, Ni, etc.) from basic atomic building blocks. While some people deny the future of nanobots as science fiction, you must understand that each of us is alive today thanks to the countless operations of nanobots in our trillions of cells. We give them biological names like "ribosomes," but at their core they are programmed machines with function.
It is also worth making a distinction between "wet" or "biological" nanotechnology, which uses DNA and the machines of life to create unique structures from proteins or DNA (as building materials), and more Drexler nanotechnology, which involves building an "assembler", or machine that engages in 3D printing with nanoscale atoms to efficiently create any thermodynamically stable structure.
Let's take a look at a few types of nanotechnology that researchers are struggling with.
Different types of nanobots and applications
In general, there are a lot of nanorobots. Here are just a few of them.
- Smallest possible engines. A group of physicists from the University of Mainz in Germany recently built the smallest single-atom engine in history. Like any other, this engine converts thermal energy into motion - but it does so on the smallest scale. The atom is trapped in a cone of electromagnetic energy, and with the help of lasers it is heated and cooled, which causes the atom to move back and forth in the cone, like a piston of an engine.
- 3D moving DNA nanomachines. Ohio State University mechanical engineers designed and built complex nanoscale mechanical parts using DNA origami - proving that the same basic design principles that apply to full-size machines can be applied to DNA - and can produce complex ones. controlled components for future nanorobots.
- Nanofins. Scientists at ETH Zurich and Technion have developed an elastic "nanofin" in the form of a polypyrrole (Ppy) nanowire 15 micrometers (millionths of a meter) long and 200 nanometers thick that can move through a biological fluid at a speed of 15 micrometers per second. Nanofins can be adapted to deliver drugs and use magnets to guide them through the bloodstream to target cancer cells, for example.
- Ant nanomotor. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a tiny motor capable of exerting 100 times its own weight on any muscle. The new nanomotors could lead to nanorobots that are small enough to penetrate living cells and fight disease, scientists say. Professor Jeremy Baumberg of Cavendish Laboratories, who is leading the study, called the device an "ant." Like a real ant, it can exert a force many times its own weight.
- Micro-robots by the type of sperm. A group of scientists from the University of Twente (Netherlands) and the German University in Cairo (Egypt) have developed sperm-like microrobots that could be controlled by oscillating weak magnetic fields. They could be used for sophisticated micromanipulation and targeted therapeutic tasks.
- Robots based on bacteria. Drexel University engineers have developed a way to use electrical fields to help microscopic robots powered by bacteria detect and navigate obstacles. Applications include drug delivery, manipulation of stem cells to direct their growth, or microstructure construction.
- Nano-missiles. Several research groups have recently built a high-speed version of remote-controlled nanoscale rockets by combining nanoparticles with biological molecules. Scientists hope to develop a rocket capable of operating in any environment; for example, to deliver a drug to a target area of the body.
The main areas of application of nano- and micromachines
The application possibilities of such nano- and micromachines are practically endless. For example:
- Cancer treatment. Identify and destroy cancer cells more accurately and efficiently.
- Drug delivery mechanism. Build targeted drug delivery mechanisms for disease control and prevention.
- Medical imaging. The creation of nanoparticles that collect in specific tissues and then scan the body during magnetic resonance imaging could reveal problems such as diabetes.
- New sensing devices. With virtually limitless possibilities to tune the probing and scanning characteristics of nanorobots, we could discover our bodies and measure the world around us more efficiently.
- Information storage devices. A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard Wyss has successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data - about 700 terabytes - in one gram of DNA, surpassing the previous record for DNA data density by a thousand times.
- New energy systems. Nanorobots can play a role in developing a more efficient system for using renewable energy sources. Or they could make our modern machines more energy efficient in such a way that they need less energy to operate at the same efficiency.
- Extra strong metamaterials. There is a lot of research in the area of metamaterials. A group at the California Institute of Technology has developed a new type of material made up of nano-sized struts similar to those of the Eiffel Tower, which has become one of the strongest and lightest in history.
- Smart windows and walls. Electrochromic devices that dynamically change color when a potential is applied are being widely studied for use in energy efficient smart windows - which could maintain a room's internal temperature, self-clean, and more.
- Micro sponges to cleanse the oceans. The carbon nanotube sponge, which can suck up water pollutants like fertilizers, pesticides and pharmaceuticals, is three times more effective than previous options.
- Replicators. Also known as molecular assemblers, these proposed devices can carry out chemical reactions by arranging reactive molecules with atomic precision.
- Health sensors. These sensors could monitor our blood chemistry, notify us of everything that happens, detect harmful food or inflammation in the body, and so on.
- Connecting our brains to the Internet. Ray Kurzweil believes nanorobots will allow us to connect our biological nervous system to the cloud in 2030.
As you can see, this is just the beginning. The possibilities are almost endless.
Nanotechnology has the potential to solve some of the biggest challenges facing the world today. They could improve human productivity, provide us with all the materials, water, energy and food we need, protect us from unknown bacteria and viruses, and even reduce the number of reasons for disrupting the world.
If that's not enough, the market for nanotechnology is huge. By 2020, the global nanotechnology industry will grow to a $ 75.8 billion market.
ILYA KHEL