Nanotechnology: General Information, Applications, and Health Concerns, Slides of Microbiology

Download Nanotechnology: General Information, Applications, and Health Concerns and more Slides Microbiology in PDF only on Docsity!

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology: General Information and Background

Nanotechnology is a concept, a term that refers to many different

technologies.

All of these technologies are extremely small in scale – “nano” is a

measurement that refers to the nanometre or 10-9^ m.

A nanometre is the width of 10 hydrogen atoms lined up side-by-side. To

put this in perspective, a human hair is about 80,000 nanometres wide; the head of a pin is about 1 million nanometres wide; a red blood cell is about 7,000 nanometres in diameter

A nanometer is the amount a man's beard grows in the time it takes him to

raise the razor to his face

The raw materials and some of the products of nanotechnology are all

extremely small in physical scale.

Nanoscience and nanotechnology often focus on the manipulation of the

most basic components of all matter — atoms and molecules — with great precision

Nanotechnology

• Materials reduced to the nanoscale can show different properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale, enabling unique applications.
• For instance, opaque substances become transparent (copper); stable materials turn combustible (aluminum); solids turn into liquids at room temperature (gold); insulators become conductors (silicon).
• A material such as gold, which is chemically inert at normal scales, can serve as a potent chemical catalyst at nanoscales. Much of the fascination with nanotechnology stems from these quantum and surface phenomena that matter exhibits at the nanoscale.

Lubick, N. (2008). Silver socks have cloudy lining. Environ Sci Technol. 42(11):3910 quoted in WikiPedia

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology: General Information and Background

Nanomedicine :

Suggested applications in nanomedicine include:

 Rapid cardiovascular repair  Treatments for pathogenic disease and cancer  Responses to physical traumas, with new methods of first aid  Surgery, and emergency or critical care  Neurography, spinal restoration and brain repair (nanostructures)  Nutrition and digestion  Reproductive modifications  Cosmetics  Sports and recreation – performance augmentation  Veterinary and space medicine  Strategies for biostasis and the control of aging processes;  human augmentation systems

The molecular-assembler concept

• Their small moving parts will enable them to operate at high frequencies: because each motion traverses less than a millionth of a meter, each can be completed in less than a millionth of a second.
• This enables extremely high productivity.
• Machines of this sort will be complex systems that are several technology generations away. Indeed, no one is even trying to directly build molecular assemblers today, because nanotechnology is still in its infancy.
• We can see a path to assemblers and the early machines may resemble the small, simple productive nanosystems in nature and in biotechnology.

Molecular Manufacturing

• Molecular manufacturing will bring both great opportunities and great potential for abuse.
• Advanced systems could be used to build large, complex products cleanly, efficiently, and at low cost.
• Building with atomic precision, desktop-scale (and larger) manufacturing systems could produce the products like the following, with consequences for many global problems: - Inexpensive, efficient solar energy systems, a renewable, zero-carbon emission source - Desktop computers with a billion processors - Medical devices able to destroy viruses and cancer cells without damaging healthy cells - Materials 100 times stronger than steel - Superior military systems - More molecular manufacturing systems

Nanopore sensor

Nanopore Sensor Applied voltage draws a DNA strand and surrounding ionic solution through a pore of nanometer dimensions. The various DNA units in the strand block ion flow by differing amounts. In turn, by measuring these differences in ion current, scientists can detect the sequence of DNA units. Atomistic scale simulations performed on the NASA Columbia supercomputer (SGI Altix-3000) allow detailed study of DNA translocation to enhance the abilities of these sequencers. Solid- state nanopores offer a better temporal control of the translocation of DNA, and a more robust template for nano-engineering than biological ion channels. The chemistry of solid- state nanopores can be more easily tuned to increase the signal resolution. These advantages will results in real-time genome sequencing..

NASA Ames nanotechnology

Nanolasers The complex interaction between light and nanometer structures, like wires, has possibilities as new technology for devices and sensors. NAS researchers are studying light emission from a semiconductor nanowire-typically 10-100 nanometers wide and a few micrometers long-which functions as a laser. Lasers made from arrays of these wires have many potential applications in communications and sensing for NASA.

NASA Ames nanotechnology

Nanowire

Carbon Nanotubes - SEM Images

• Neural tree with 14 symmetric Y-junctions
• Branching and switching of signals at each junction similar to what happens in biological neural network
• Neural tree can be trained to perform complex switching and computing functions
• Not restricted to only electronic signals; possible to use acoustic, chemical or thermal signals

Nano and BioTechnology Research at NASA Ames M. Meyyappan and Harry Partridge NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035

Abstract This article provides an overview of nanotechnology and biotechnology research at NASA Ames Research Center and covers current results in the areas of carbon nanotube (CNT) growth and characterization and functionalization, nanotubes in scanning probe microscopy, inorganic nanowires, biosensors, chemical sensors, nanoelectronics optoelectronics, computational nanotechnology, quantum device simulation, and computational optoelectronics.

Link to Report