Small wonders-Nanotechnology is the hottest area in research and development

The future of science and technology lies in a small world — so tiny it can’t be seen with the unaided human eye.

Beatrice E. Garcia
Knight Ridder Spokesman Review

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.

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 in Florida and 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 cellphone 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 nano-scale elements have made their way to the marketplace. Of around 1,000 companies in business with nano-related products, 21 percent are bringing in revenue, according to a recent survey by the NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade group based in New York City.

Nano-particles are used, for example, in an inner-core coating in Wilson’s tennis balls, Eddie Bauer’s new line of stain-resistant khakis, cosmetics where they help screen the sun, and in an anti-microbial dressing for wounds.

They help make the results in a home-pregnancy test easier to read, and they’re used in “self-cleaning” window glass products, in step-ups for GMC’s Safari sports utility vehicle and Chevy’s Astro minivan, and in optical components for telecom equipment.

A recent study by CMP Cientifica, a Spanish research firm, estimated that the sale of nano-components 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 nano-components, including all computer chips, half of pharmaceuticals and half of chemical catalysts.

The study and development of nano-sized elements and processes are racing ahead in Florida, 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.

The Bush administration appropriated $710 million for the federal nanotech initiative in fiscal 2003, which began Oct. 1.

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 nano-related products and processes over the next 12 to 14 months.

That would be a big increase from where venture capital funding has been. Still, Tinker figures VCs are reluctant to take big, new risks after the licking they took during the dot-com boom and bust in the late 1990s and 2000.

Tinker notes, however, that there’s also money flowing into nano-related research from U.S. and multinational corporations. He points out that the Big Three auto companies all have nano-related research projects going on.

Other companies such as General Electric, IBM and Intel are big funders of nano-research too.

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 nano-products 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 nano-particles 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.

Brij Moudgil, director of the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Particle Science and Technology at the University of Florida, says about 80 percent of the work researchers are doing today involves understanding the behavior of particles and learning how to control them at nano-scale.

For instance, Dr. Eric Crumpler, an assistant professor at FIU’s BioEngineering Lab, is working with molecular-sized particles with magnetic properties that he believes can be controlled and guided from outside the body so they deliver medicine to specific points. He’s also studying what the appropriate dosage would be using nano-scale particles to deliver, for example, a cancer-fighting drug.

The benefits are obvious, says Crumpler: few side effects and a less invasive procedure. He’s partnered for some of this work with Dr. Anthony McGoron, also at FIU, whose expertise is imaging.

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 nano-scale materials, processes and devices at IBM, the answer is obvious: Current technology will reach its limits eventually.

In one of IBM’s many nano-related 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.

Scientists believe nanotechnology could allow governments and industry to keep the planet livable, by slashing waste and helping provide sustainable food, water and energy.

They say 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 nano-products are so small, there is less waste in the production process and in the trashcan when nano-devices are discarded at the end of their lives.

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 like 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.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=112402&ID=s1259444&cat=section.business