Researchers Have Big Hopes for Nanotechnology

The future of science and technology lies in a small world — so tiny it can’t be seen with the unaided human eye.
Broadly known as nanotechnology, it’s the hottest area in research and development. Embracing various sciences, engineering and technology, it holds out enormous potential for advances in everything from drug delivery to consumer products.

BY BEATRICE E. GARCIA
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

Nanotechnology, which focuses on the ability to work at the molecular level to create new structures and functions, is now attracting millions of dollars in government funding and corporate investment.

Coming from the Greek word nano, which means a billionth, one nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Nano structures usually measure less than 100 nanometers.
Think extremely small here — far narrower than the width of a single human hair strand or the period in this sentence.
Researchers around the country are excited about the big possibilities these tiny elements can provide for breakthroughs in medicine, pollution and environmental controls, and manufacturing.

To them, the future isn’t that far off — just three to five years.
Imagine molecules that can deliver medicine inside the body to a precise location in order to blast a cancerous tumor or engulf HIV, or new data storage technology that can store the contents of 200 CD-ROMs on a chip the size of a postage stamp. Or consider a cell-phone battery that packs more power than today’s desktop PC.

Researchers say the nanotechnology field today can be compared to where the plastics industry was in the 1930s or the computer industry was in the late 1950s.
"We’re creating the technology of the next generation," says Vish Prasad, dean of Florida International University’s College of Engineering.
Already, a variety of products containing nanoscale elements have made their way to the marketplace. Of around 1,000 companies in business with nanorelated products, 21 percent are bringing in revenue, according to a recent survey by the NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade group based in New York City.

A recent study by CMP Cientifica, a Spanish research firm, estimated that the sale of nanocomponents totals about $30 million a year.
Mihail Roco, the National Science Foundation’s senior adviser on nanotechnology, envisions a $1 trillion yearly market in products that carry nanocomponents, including all computer chips, half of pharmaceuticals and half of chemical catalysts.
The study and development of nanosized elements and processes are racing ahead across the United States and around the world.

U.S. efforts got a major boost in 1999 when the Clinton administration created the National Nanotechnology Initiative. Last year, some $604 million was dedicated to nanotechnology research in 10 federal government departments and agencies ranging from the Defense Department to the National Science Foundation.
Nathan Tinker, executive vice president and co-founder of the NanoBusiness Alliance in New York City, estimates that in the United States alone there will be some $1.2 billion in venture capital available to fund research and development of nanorelated products and processes over the next 12 to 14 months.

The NanoBusiness Alliance estimates there are some 1,000 nanorelated start-ups in the United States, up from 30 in 1997. About 300 of these start-ups have received venture capital funding so far.
The beginnings of this new line of research dates back more than 50 years.
Perhaps, the earliest visionary was Richard Feynman, a physicist who gave a lecture in the late 1950s entitled "There Is Plenty of Room at the Bottom."

Although Feynman’s speech went unnoticed for many years, he later became well known as one of the lead investigators of the Challenger shuttle disaster in the mid-1980s.
The term nanotechnology was popularized by technologist Eric Drexler in his 1986 book, Engines of Creation. He envisioned tiny machines that could build everything from chairs to rocket engines and microscopic robots that could cure human ills.

Though the nanoproducts on the market today are innovative in their own right, they are a bit less fantastic than Drexler’s vision.
However, the cutting-edge products researchers envision for tomorrow will require an understanding of how nanoparticles behave as well as the development of new manufacturing processes.

That’s where the big dollars and efforts are being expended today in major research universities such as University of Florida, University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Austin, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University and Rice University.
While the gee-whiz factor of nanotechnology is interesting to most folks, there remains the nagging question: Why go smaller? Scientists and engineers are already dealing with micro-elements.

To H.S. Philip Wong, senior manager of nanoscale materials, processes and devices at IBM, the answer is obvious: current technology will reach its limits eventually.
"There have been exponential increases in performance as we go forward each year. But this can’t go on forever. That’s why we’re doing this research," he says.

In one of IBM’s many nanorelated research projects, the company’s scientists have demonstrated a data storage density of a trillion bits per square inch — 20 times higher than the densest magnetic storage available today. That would be enough to store 25-million printed textbook pages on a surface the size of a postage stamp.

This research project is code-named Millipede. Rather than using traditional magnetic or electronic means to store data, Millipede employs thousands of sharp tips to punch indentations, representing individual bits into a thin plastic film. The result is akin to a nanotech version of the venerable data processing punch card.

Scientists like the NSF’s Roco believe nanotechnology could allow governments and industry to keep the planet livable, by slashing waste and helping provide sustainable food, water and energy.
Roco says that filter systems for drinking or wastewater, natural-gas pipelines and smokestacks can be designed at the molecular level, to remove even the most minuscule impurities. That means cleaner drinking water and cleaner burning with fewer smog-creating impurities.

Because nanoproducts are so small, there is less waste in the production process and in the trash can when nanodevices are discarded at the end of their lives, Roco says.
"By understanding the molecular level, the overall trend leads to sustainable development — the opposite of increased pollution," he says.

To be sure, the enthusiasm and dollars surrounding nanotechnology today are reminiscent of the dot-com explosion of the late 1990s. But the experts say there is a difference.
Dale Kutnick, head of research at The Meta Group, a research firm in Stamford, Conn., sees nanotechnology as a tool for curing diseases or for developing faster, better machines such as batteries or storage discs.

Although it may perform a function that already exists, it will be able to do it in a more targeted, efficient and less expensive manner.
The dot-com rush "was all virtual. It was all about a new way of doing business," he says. "This is all real. We’re not inventing a need for nanotechnology. The need is already there."

http://www.sltrib.com/11172002/business/17040.htm