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8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 112
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 212
Nanotechnology is a hybrid science combining engineering information
technology chemistry and biology The goal of nanotechnology is to manipulate atoms
individually at nanoscale dimension it is not just a miniaturization process but alsoardquobottom-uprdquo manufacturing approach of building atoms by atoms using molecular
assembler The need of the hour is to build a molecular assembler The main unifying
theme is the control of matter on a scale smaller than 1 micrometre nano-scientists allover the world are advancing towards that direction Implicit application of this emerging
technology are infinite ranging from supercomputing raising the dead nanorobotics
painless surgeries nanosensoretc
Nanotechnology
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 312
A basic definitionNanotechnology is theengineering of functional systems at
the molecular scaleThis covers both currentwork and concepts thatare more advanced
In its original sensenanotechnology refers tothe projected ability toconstruct items from thebottom up usingtechniques and tools
being developed today tomake complete highperformance products
With 15342 atoms this parallel-shaft speedreducer gear is one of the largestnanomechanical devices ever modeled in atomicdetail
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is a field of applied science and technology covering a
broad range of topics The main unifying theme is the control of matter on a scale smaller than 1 micrometre normally approximately 1 to 100 nanometers as well as the
fabrication of devices of this size It is a highly multidisciplinary field drawing fromfields such as applied physics materials science colloidal science device physics
supramolecular chemistry and even mechanical and electrical engineering Muchspeculation exists as to what new science and technology may result from these lines of
research Nanotechnology can be seen as an extension of existing sciences into the
nanoscale or as a recasting of existing sciences using a newer more modern termTwo main approaches are used in nanotechnology In the bottom-up approach
materials and devices are built from molecular components which assemble themselves
chemically by principles of molecular recognition In the top-down approach nano-objects are constructed from larger entities without atomic-level control The impetus for
nanotechnology comes from a renewed interest in colloidal science coupled with a new
generation of analytical tools such as the atomic force microscope (AFM) and thescanning tunneling microscope (STM) Combined with refined processes such as electron beam lithography and molecular beam epitaxy these instruments allow the deliberate
manipulation of nanostructures and led to the observation of novel phenomena
Examples of nanotechnology in modern use are the manufacture of polymers based onmolecular structure and the design of computer chip layouts based on surface science
Despite the great promise of numerous nanotechnologies such as quantum dots and
nanotubes real commercial applications have mainly used the advantages of colloida
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 412
nanoparticles in bulk form such as suntan lotion cosmetics protective coatings and
stain resistant clothing
Four Generations
Origins
The first use of the distinguishing concepts in nanotechnology (but predatinguse of that name) was in Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom a talk given by
physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech onDecember 29 1959 Feynman described a process by which the ability to manipulateindividual atoms and molecules might be developed using one set of precise tools to
build and operate another proportionally smaller set so on down to the needed scale In
the course of this he noted scaling issues would arise from the changing magnitude of various physical phenomena gravity would become less important surface tension and
Van der Waals attraction would become more important etc This basic idea appears
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 512
feasible and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to produce a useful
quantity of end products
The term nanotechnology was defined by Tokyo Science University Professor NorioTaniguchi in a 1974 paper (N Taniguchi On the Basic Concept of Nano-Technology
Proc Intl Conf Prod Eng Tokyo Part II Japan Society of Precision Engineering1974) as follows Nano-technology mainly consists of the processing of separation
consolidation and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule In the1980s the basic idea of this definition was explored in much more depth by Dr K Eric
Drexler who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and
devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and
Computation (1998 ISBN 0-471-57518-6) and so the term acquired its current sense
Nanotechnology and nanoscience got started in the early 1980s with two major
developments the birth of cluster science and the invention of the scanning tunneling
microscope (STM) This development led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1986 andcarbon nanotubes a few years later In another development the synthesis and properties
of semiconductor nanocrystals was studied This led to a fast increasing number of metaloxide nanoparticles of quantum dots The atomic force microscope was invented five
years after the STM was invented The AFM uses atomic force to see the atoms
Current research
o Nanomaterials
o Bottom-up approacheso Top-down approaches
Bottom-up approaches
These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies
bull DNA Nanotechnology utilises the specificity of Watson-Crick basepairing to
construct well-defined structures out of DNA and other nucleic acids
bull More generally molecular self-assembly seeks to use concepts of
supramolecular chemistry and molecular recognition in particular to cause
single-molecule components to automatically arrange themselves into some usefulconformation
Top-down approaches
These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their assembly
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 612
bull Many technologies descended from conventional solid-state silicon methods for
fabricating microprocessors are now capable of creating features smaller than 100
nm falling under the definition of nanotechnology Giant magnetoresistance- based hard drives already on the market fit this description [2] as do atomic layer
deposition (ALD) techniques
bull
Solid-state techniques can also be used to create devices known asnanoelectromechanical systems or NEMS which are related tomicroelectromechanical systems or MEMS
Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale write head to
deposit a chemical on a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip pen
nanolithography This fits into the larger subfield of nanolithography
TECHNIQUES
Nanomaterials
A unique aspect of nanotechnology is the vastly increased ratio of surface area to
volume present in many nanoscale materials which opens new possibilities in
surface-based science such as catalysis A number of physical phenomena become noticeably pronounced as the size of the system decreases These include
statistical mechanical effects as well as quantum mechanical effects for example
the ldquoquantum size effectrdquo where the electronic properties of solids are altered with
great reductions in particle size This effect does not come into play by goingfrom macro to micro dimensions However it becomes dominant when the
nanometer size range is reached Additionally a number of physical properties change when compared to macroscopic systems One example is the increase insurface area to volume of materials This catalytic activity also opens potential
risks in their interaction with biomaterials
Materials reduced to the nanoscale can suddenly show very different
properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale enabling uniqueapplications For instance opaque substances become transparent (copper) inert
materials become catalysts (platinum) 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 thefascination with nanotechnology stems from these unique quantum and surface phenomena that matter exhibits at the nanoscale
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 712
Nanomedicine
Drug Delivery
Drug delivery systems lipid- or polymer-based nanoparticles can bedesigned to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs The
strength of drug delivery systems is their ability to alter the pharmacokinetics and
biodistribution of the drug Nanoparticles have unusual properties that can be used toimprove drug delivery Where larger particles would have been cleared from the body
cells take up these nanoparticles because of their size Complex drug delivery
mechanisms are being developed including the ability to get drugs through cell walls andinto cells Efficiency is important because many diseases depend upon processes within
the cell and can only be impeded by drugs that make their way into the cell Triggered
response is one way for drug molecules to be used more efficiently Drugs are placed in
the body and only activate on encountering a particular signal For example a drug with poor solubility will be replaced by a drug delivery system where both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic environments exist improving the solubility Also a drug may cause tissue
damage but with drug delivery regulated drug release can eliminate the problem If adrug is cleared too quickly from the body this could force a patient to use high doses but
with drug delivery systems clearance can be reduced by altering the pharmacokinetics of
the drug Poor biodistribution is a problem that can affect normal tissues throughwidespread distribution but the particulates from drug delivery systems lower the volume
of distribution and reduce the effect on non-target tissue Potential nanodrugs will work
by very specific and well-understood mechanisms one of the major impacts of
nanotechnology and nanoscience will be in leading development of completely new
drugs with more useful behavior and less side effects
Cancer
A schematic illustration showing how nanoparticles or other other cancer drugs
might be used to treat cancer
Given such molecular tools we could design a small device able to identify andkill cancer cells The device would have a small computer several binding sites to
determine the concentration of specific molecules and a supply of some poison which
could be selectively released and was able to kill a cell identified as cancerousThe device would circulate freely throughout the body and would
periodically sample its environment by determining whether the binding sites were or
were not occupied Occupancy statistics would allow determination of concentration
Todays monoclonal antibodies are able to bind to only a single type of protein or other antigen and have not proven effective against most cancers
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 212
Nanotechnology is a hybrid science combining engineering information
technology chemistry and biology The goal of nanotechnology is to manipulate atoms
individually at nanoscale dimension it is not just a miniaturization process but alsoardquobottom-uprdquo manufacturing approach of building atoms by atoms using molecular
assembler The need of the hour is to build a molecular assembler The main unifying
theme is the control of matter on a scale smaller than 1 micrometre nano-scientists allover the world are advancing towards that direction Implicit application of this emerging
technology are infinite ranging from supercomputing raising the dead nanorobotics
painless surgeries nanosensoretc
Nanotechnology
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 312
A basic definitionNanotechnology is theengineering of functional systems at
the molecular scaleThis covers both currentwork and concepts thatare more advanced
In its original sensenanotechnology refers tothe projected ability toconstruct items from thebottom up usingtechniques and tools
being developed today tomake complete highperformance products
With 15342 atoms this parallel-shaft speedreducer gear is one of the largestnanomechanical devices ever modeled in atomicdetail
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is a field of applied science and technology covering a
broad range of topics The main unifying theme is the control of matter on a scale smaller than 1 micrometre normally approximately 1 to 100 nanometers as well as the
fabrication of devices of this size It is a highly multidisciplinary field drawing fromfields such as applied physics materials science colloidal science device physics
supramolecular chemistry and even mechanical and electrical engineering Muchspeculation exists as to what new science and technology may result from these lines of
research Nanotechnology can be seen as an extension of existing sciences into the
nanoscale or as a recasting of existing sciences using a newer more modern termTwo main approaches are used in nanotechnology In the bottom-up approach
materials and devices are built from molecular components which assemble themselves
chemically by principles of molecular recognition In the top-down approach nano-objects are constructed from larger entities without atomic-level control The impetus for
nanotechnology comes from a renewed interest in colloidal science coupled with a new
generation of analytical tools such as the atomic force microscope (AFM) and thescanning tunneling microscope (STM) Combined with refined processes such as electron beam lithography and molecular beam epitaxy these instruments allow the deliberate
manipulation of nanostructures and led to the observation of novel phenomena
Examples of nanotechnology in modern use are the manufacture of polymers based onmolecular structure and the design of computer chip layouts based on surface science
Despite the great promise of numerous nanotechnologies such as quantum dots and
nanotubes real commercial applications have mainly used the advantages of colloida
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 412
nanoparticles in bulk form such as suntan lotion cosmetics protective coatings and
stain resistant clothing
Four Generations
Origins
The first use of the distinguishing concepts in nanotechnology (but predatinguse of that name) was in Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom a talk given by
physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech onDecember 29 1959 Feynman described a process by which the ability to manipulateindividual atoms and molecules might be developed using one set of precise tools to
build and operate another proportionally smaller set so on down to the needed scale In
the course of this he noted scaling issues would arise from the changing magnitude of various physical phenomena gravity would become less important surface tension and
Van der Waals attraction would become more important etc This basic idea appears
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 512
feasible and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to produce a useful
quantity of end products
The term nanotechnology was defined by Tokyo Science University Professor NorioTaniguchi in a 1974 paper (N Taniguchi On the Basic Concept of Nano-Technology
Proc Intl Conf Prod Eng Tokyo Part II Japan Society of Precision Engineering1974) as follows Nano-technology mainly consists of the processing of separation
consolidation and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule In the1980s the basic idea of this definition was explored in much more depth by Dr K Eric
Drexler who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and
devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and
Computation (1998 ISBN 0-471-57518-6) and so the term acquired its current sense
Nanotechnology and nanoscience got started in the early 1980s with two major
developments the birth of cluster science and the invention of the scanning tunneling
microscope (STM) This development led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1986 andcarbon nanotubes a few years later In another development the synthesis and properties
of semiconductor nanocrystals was studied This led to a fast increasing number of metaloxide nanoparticles of quantum dots The atomic force microscope was invented five
years after the STM was invented The AFM uses atomic force to see the atoms
Current research
o Nanomaterials
o Bottom-up approacheso Top-down approaches
Bottom-up approaches
These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies
bull DNA Nanotechnology utilises the specificity of Watson-Crick basepairing to
construct well-defined structures out of DNA and other nucleic acids
bull More generally molecular self-assembly seeks to use concepts of
supramolecular chemistry and molecular recognition in particular to cause
single-molecule components to automatically arrange themselves into some usefulconformation
Top-down approaches
These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their assembly
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 612
bull Many technologies descended from conventional solid-state silicon methods for
fabricating microprocessors are now capable of creating features smaller than 100
nm falling under the definition of nanotechnology Giant magnetoresistance- based hard drives already on the market fit this description [2] as do atomic layer
deposition (ALD) techniques
bull
Solid-state techniques can also be used to create devices known asnanoelectromechanical systems or NEMS which are related tomicroelectromechanical systems or MEMS
Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale write head to
deposit a chemical on a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip pen
nanolithography This fits into the larger subfield of nanolithography
TECHNIQUES
Nanomaterials
A unique aspect of nanotechnology is the vastly increased ratio of surface area to
volume present in many nanoscale materials which opens new possibilities in
surface-based science such as catalysis A number of physical phenomena become noticeably pronounced as the size of the system decreases These include
statistical mechanical effects as well as quantum mechanical effects for example
the ldquoquantum size effectrdquo where the electronic properties of solids are altered with
great reductions in particle size This effect does not come into play by goingfrom macro to micro dimensions However it becomes dominant when the
nanometer size range is reached Additionally a number of physical properties change when compared to macroscopic systems One example is the increase insurface area to volume of materials This catalytic activity also opens potential
risks in their interaction with biomaterials
Materials reduced to the nanoscale can suddenly show very different
properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale enabling uniqueapplications For instance opaque substances become transparent (copper) inert
materials become catalysts (platinum) 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 thefascination with nanotechnology stems from these unique quantum and surface phenomena that matter exhibits at the nanoscale
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 712
Nanomedicine
Drug Delivery
Drug delivery systems lipid- or polymer-based nanoparticles can bedesigned to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs The
strength of drug delivery systems is their ability to alter the pharmacokinetics and
biodistribution of the drug Nanoparticles have unusual properties that can be used toimprove drug delivery Where larger particles would have been cleared from the body
cells take up these nanoparticles because of their size Complex drug delivery
mechanisms are being developed including the ability to get drugs through cell walls andinto cells Efficiency is important because many diseases depend upon processes within
the cell and can only be impeded by drugs that make their way into the cell Triggered
response is one way for drug molecules to be used more efficiently Drugs are placed in
the body and only activate on encountering a particular signal For example a drug with poor solubility will be replaced by a drug delivery system where both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic environments exist improving the solubility Also a drug may cause tissue
damage but with drug delivery regulated drug release can eliminate the problem If adrug is cleared too quickly from the body this could force a patient to use high doses but
with drug delivery systems clearance can be reduced by altering the pharmacokinetics of
the drug Poor biodistribution is a problem that can affect normal tissues throughwidespread distribution but the particulates from drug delivery systems lower the volume
of distribution and reduce the effect on non-target tissue Potential nanodrugs will work
by very specific and well-understood mechanisms one of the major impacts of
nanotechnology and nanoscience will be in leading development of completely new
drugs with more useful behavior and less side effects
Cancer
A schematic illustration showing how nanoparticles or other other cancer drugs
might be used to treat cancer
Given such molecular tools we could design a small device able to identify andkill cancer cells The device would have a small computer several binding sites to
determine the concentration of specific molecules and a supply of some poison which
could be selectively released and was able to kill a cell identified as cancerousThe device would circulate freely throughout the body and would
periodically sample its environment by determining whether the binding sites were or
were not occupied Occupancy statistics would allow determination of concentration
Todays monoclonal antibodies are able to bind to only a single type of protein or other antigen and have not proven effective against most cancers
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 312
A basic definitionNanotechnology is theengineering of functional systems at
the molecular scaleThis covers both currentwork and concepts thatare more advanced
In its original sensenanotechnology refers tothe projected ability toconstruct items from thebottom up usingtechniques and tools
being developed today tomake complete highperformance products
With 15342 atoms this parallel-shaft speedreducer gear is one of the largestnanomechanical devices ever modeled in atomicdetail
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is a field of applied science and technology covering a
broad range of topics The main unifying theme is the control of matter on a scale smaller than 1 micrometre normally approximately 1 to 100 nanometers as well as the
fabrication of devices of this size It is a highly multidisciplinary field drawing fromfields such as applied physics materials science colloidal science device physics
supramolecular chemistry and even mechanical and electrical engineering Muchspeculation exists as to what new science and technology may result from these lines of
research Nanotechnology can be seen as an extension of existing sciences into the
nanoscale or as a recasting of existing sciences using a newer more modern termTwo main approaches are used in nanotechnology In the bottom-up approach
materials and devices are built from molecular components which assemble themselves
chemically by principles of molecular recognition In the top-down approach nano-objects are constructed from larger entities without atomic-level control The impetus for
nanotechnology comes from a renewed interest in colloidal science coupled with a new
generation of analytical tools such as the atomic force microscope (AFM) and thescanning tunneling microscope (STM) Combined with refined processes such as electron beam lithography and molecular beam epitaxy these instruments allow the deliberate
manipulation of nanostructures and led to the observation of novel phenomena
Examples of nanotechnology in modern use are the manufacture of polymers based onmolecular structure and the design of computer chip layouts based on surface science
Despite the great promise of numerous nanotechnologies such as quantum dots and
nanotubes real commercial applications have mainly used the advantages of colloida
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 412
nanoparticles in bulk form such as suntan lotion cosmetics protective coatings and
stain resistant clothing
Four Generations
Origins
The first use of the distinguishing concepts in nanotechnology (but predatinguse of that name) was in Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom a talk given by
physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech onDecember 29 1959 Feynman described a process by which the ability to manipulateindividual atoms and molecules might be developed using one set of precise tools to
build and operate another proportionally smaller set so on down to the needed scale In
the course of this he noted scaling issues would arise from the changing magnitude of various physical phenomena gravity would become less important surface tension and
Van der Waals attraction would become more important etc This basic idea appears
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 512
feasible and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to produce a useful
quantity of end products
The term nanotechnology was defined by Tokyo Science University Professor NorioTaniguchi in a 1974 paper (N Taniguchi On the Basic Concept of Nano-Technology
Proc Intl Conf Prod Eng Tokyo Part II Japan Society of Precision Engineering1974) as follows Nano-technology mainly consists of the processing of separation
consolidation and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule In the1980s the basic idea of this definition was explored in much more depth by Dr K Eric
Drexler who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and
devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and
Computation (1998 ISBN 0-471-57518-6) and so the term acquired its current sense
Nanotechnology and nanoscience got started in the early 1980s with two major
developments the birth of cluster science and the invention of the scanning tunneling
microscope (STM) This development led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1986 andcarbon nanotubes a few years later In another development the synthesis and properties
of semiconductor nanocrystals was studied This led to a fast increasing number of metaloxide nanoparticles of quantum dots The atomic force microscope was invented five
years after the STM was invented The AFM uses atomic force to see the atoms
Current research
o Nanomaterials
o Bottom-up approacheso Top-down approaches
Bottom-up approaches
These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies
bull DNA Nanotechnology utilises the specificity of Watson-Crick basepairing to
construct well-defined structures out of DNA and other nucleic acids
bull More generally molecular self-assembly seeks to use concepts of
supramolecular chemistry and molecular recognition in particular to cause
single-molecule components to automatically arrange themselves into some usefulconformation
Top-down approaches
These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their assembly
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 612
bull Many technologies descended from conventional solid-state silicon methods for
fabricating microprocessors are now capable of creating features smaller than 100
nm falling under the definition of nanotechnology Giant magnetoresistance- based hard drives already on the market fit this description [2] as do atomic layer
deposition (ALD) techniques
bull
Solid-state techniques can also be used to create devices known asnanoelectromechanical systems or NEMS which are related tomicroelectromechanical systems or MEMS
Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale write head to
deposit a chemical on a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip pen
nanolithography This fits into the larger subfield of nanolithography
TECHNIQUES
Nanomaterials
A unique aspect of nanotechnology is the vastly increased ratio of surface area to
volume present in many nanoscale materials which opens new possibilities in
surface-based science such as catalysis A number of physical phenomena become noticeably pronounced as the size of the system decreases These include
statistical mechanical effects as well as quantum mechanical effects for example
the ldquoquantum size effectrdquo where the electronic properties of solids are altered with
great reductions in particle size This effect does not come into play by goingfrom macro to micro dimensions However it becomes dominant when the
nanometer size range is reached Additionally a number of physical properties change when compared to macroscopic systems One example is the increase insurface area to volume of materials This catalytic activity also opens potential
risks in their interaction with biomaterials
Materials reduced to the nanoscale can suddenly show very different
properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale enabling uniqueapplications For instance opaque substances become transparent (copper) inert
materials become catalysts (platinum) 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 thefascination with nanotechnology stems from these unique quantum and surface phenomena that matter exhibits at the nanoscale
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 712
Nanomedicine
Drug Delivery
Drug delivery systems lipid- or polymer-based nanoparticles can bedesigned to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs The
strength of drug delivery systems is their ability to alter the pharmacokinetics and
biodistribution of the drug Nanoparticles have unusual properties that can be used toimprove drug delivery Where larger particles would have been cleared from the body
cells take up these nanoparticles because of their size Complex drug delivery
mechanisms are being developed including the ability to get drugs through cell walls andinto cells Efficiency is important because many diseases depend upon processes within
the cell and can only be impeded by drugs that make their way into the cell Triggered
response is one way for drug molecules to be used more efficiently Drugs are placed in
the body and only activate on encountering a particular signal For example a drug with poor solubility will be replaced by a drug delivery system where both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic environments exist improving the solubility Also a drug may cause tissue
damage but with drug delivery regulated drug release can eliminate the problem If adrug is cleared too quickly from the body this could force a patient to use high doses but
with drug delivery systems clearance can be reduced by altering the pharmacokinetics of
the drug Poor biodistribution is a problem that can affect normal tissues throughwidespread distribution but the particulates from drug delivery systems lower the volume
of distribution and reduce the effect on non-target tissue Potential nanodrugs will work
by very specific and well-understood mechanisms one of the major impacts of
nanotechnology and nanoscience will be in leading development of completely new
drugs with more useful behavior and less side effects
Cancer
A schematic illustration showing how nanoparticles or other other cancer drugs
might be used to treat cancer
Given such molecular tools we could design a small device able to identify andkill cancer cells The device would have a small computer several binding sites to
determine the concentration of specific molecules and a supply of some poison which
could be selectively released and was able to kill a cell identified as cancerousThe device would circulate freely throughout the body and would
periodically sample its environment by determining whether the binding sites were or
were not occupied Occupancy statistics would allow determination of concentration
Todays monoclonal antibodies are able to bind to only a single type of protein or other antigen and have not proven effective against most cancers
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 412
nanoparticles in bulk form such as suntan lotion cosmetics protective coatings and
stain resistant clothing
Four Generations
Origins
The first use of the distinguishing concepts in nanotechnology (but predatinguse of that name) was in Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom a talk given by
physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech onDecember 29 1959 Feynman described a process by which the ability to manipulateindividual atoms and molecules might be developed using one set of precise tools to
build and operate another proportionally smaller set so on down to the needed scale In
the course of this he noted scaling issues would arise from the changing magnitude of various physical phenomena gravity would become less important surface tension and
Van der Waals attraction would become more important etc This basic idea appears
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 512
feasible and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to produce a useful
quantity of end products
The term nanotechnology was defined by Tokyo Science University Professor NorioTaniguchi in a 1974 paper (N Taniguchi On the Basic Concept of Nano-Technology
Proc Intl Conf Prod Eng Tokyo Part II Japan Society of Precision Engineering1974) as follows Nano-technology mainly consists of the processing of separation
consolidation and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule In the1980s the basic idea of this definition was explored in much more depth by Dr K Eric
Drexler who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and
devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and
Computation (1998 ISBN 0-471-57518-6) and so the term acquired its current sense
Nanotechnology and nanoscience got started in the early 1980s with two major
developments the birth of cluster science and the invention of the scanning tunneling
microscope (STM) This development led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1986 andcarbon nanotubes a few years later In another development the synthesis and properties
of semiconductor nanocrystals was studied This led to a fast increasing number of metaloxide nanoparticles of quantum dots The atomic force microscope was invented five
years after the STM was invented The AFM uses atomic force to see the atoms
Current research
o Nanomaterials
o Bottom-up approacheso Top-down approaches
Bottom-up approaches
These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies
bull DNA Nanotechnology utilises the specificity of Watson-Crick basepairing to
construct well-defined structures out of DNA and other nucleic acids
bull More generally molecular self-assembly seeks to use concepts of
supramolecular chemistry and molecular recognition in particular to cause
single-molecule components to automatically arrange themselves into some usefulconformation
Top-down approaches
These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their assembly
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 612
bull Many technologies descended from conventional solid-state silicon methods for
fabricating microprocessors are now capable of creating features smaller than 100
nm falling under the definition of nanotechnology Giant magnetoresistance- based hard drives already on the market fit this description [2] as do atomic layer
deposition (ALD) techniques
bull
Solid-state techniques can also be used to create devices known asnanoelectromechanical systems or NEMS which are related tomicroelectromechanical systems or MEMS
Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale write head to
deposit a chemical on a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip pen
nanolithography This fits into the larger subfield of nanolithography
TECHNIQUES
Nanomaterials
A unique aspect of nanotechnology is the vastly increased ratio of surface area to
volume present in many nanoscale materials which opens new possibilities in
surface-based science such as catalysis A number of physical phenomena become noticeably pronounced as the size of the system decreases These include
statistical mechanical effects as well as quantum mechanical effects for example
the ldquoquantum size effectrdquo where the electronic properties of solids are altered with
great reductions in particle size This effect does not come into play by goingfrom macro to micro dimensions However it becomes dominant when the
nanometer size range is reached Additionally a number of physical properties change when compared to macroscopic systems One example is the increase insurface area to volume of materials This catalytic activity also opens potential
risks in their interaction with biomaterials
Materials reduced to the nanoscale can suddenly show very different
properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale enabling uniqueapplications For instance opaque substances become transparent (copper) inert
materials become catalysts (platinum) 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 thefascination with nanotechnology stems from these unique quantum and surface phenomena that matter exhibits at the nanoscale
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 712
Nanomedicine
Drug Delivery
Drug delivery systems lipid- or polymer-based nanoparticles can bedesigned to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs The
strength of drug delivery systems is their ability to alter the pharmacokinetics and
biodistribution of the drug Nanoparticles have unusual properties that can be used toimprove drug delivery Where larger particles would have been cleared from the body
cells take up these nanoparticles because of their size Complex drug delivery
mechanisms are being developed including the ability to get drugs through cell walls andinto cells Efficiency is important because many diseases depend upon processes within
the cell and can only be impeded by drugs that make their way into the cell Triggered
response is one way for drug molecules to be used more efficiently Drugs are placed in
the body and only activate on encountering a particular signal For example a drug with poor solubility will be replaced by a drug delivery system where both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic environments exist improving the solubility Also a drug may cause tissue
damage but with drug delivery regulated drug release can eliminate the problem If adrug is cleared too quickly from the body this could force a patient to use high doses but
with drug delivery systems clearance can be reduced by altering the pharmacokinetics of
the drug Poor biodistribution is a problem that can affect normal tissues throughwidespread distribution but the particulates from drug delivery systems lower the volume
of distribution and reduce the effect on non-target tissue Potential nanodrugs will work
by very specific and well-understood mechanisms one of the major impacts of
nanotechnology and nanoscience will be in leading development of completely new
drugs with more useful behavior and less side effects
Cancer
A schematic illustration showing how nanoparticles or other other cancer drugs
might be used to treat cancer
Given such molecular tools we could design a small device able to identify andkill cancer cells The device would have a small computer several binding sites to
determine the concentration of specific molecules and a supply of some poison which
could be selectively released and was able to kill a cell identified as cancerousThe device would circulate freely throughout the body and would
periodically sample its environment by determining whether the binding sites were or
were not occupied Occupancy statistics would allow determination of concentration
Todays monoclonal antibodies are able to bind to only a single type of protein or other antigen and have not proven effective against most cancers
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 512
feasible and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to produce a useful
quantity of end products
The term nanotechnology was defined by Tokyo Science University Professor NorioTaniguchi in a 1974 paper (N Taniguchi On the Basic Concept of Nano-Technology
Proc Intl Conf Prod Eng Tokyo Part II Japan Society of Precision Engineering1974) as follows Nano-technology mainly consists of the processing of separation
consolidation and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule In the1980s the basic idea of this definition was explored in much more depth by Dr K Eric
Drexler who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and
devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and
Computation (1998 ISBN 0-471-57518-6) and so the term acquired its current sense
Nanotechnology and nanoscience got started in the early 1980s with two major
developments the birth of cluster science and the invention of the scanning tunneling
microscope (STM) This development led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1986 andcarbon nanotubes a few years later In another development the synthesis and properties
of semiconductor nanocrystals was studied This led to a fast increasing number of metaloxide nanoparticles of quantum dots The atomic force microscope was invented five
years after the STM was invented The AFM uses atomic force to see the atoms
Current research
o Nanomaterials
o Bottom-up approacheso Top-down approaches
Bottom-up approaches
These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies
bull DNA Nanotechnology utilises the specificity of Watson-Crick basepairing to
construct well-defined structures out of DNA and other nucleic acids
bull More generally molecular self-assembly seeks to use concepts of
supramolecular chemistry and molecular recognition in particular to cause
single-molecule components to automatically arrange themselves into some usefulconformation
Top-down approaches
These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their assembly
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 612
bull Many technologies descended from conventional solid-state silicon methods for
fabricating microprocessors are now capable of creating features smaller than 100
nm falling under the definition of nanotechnology Giant magnetoresistance- based hard drives already on the market fit this description [2] as do atomic layer
deposition (ALD) techniques
bull
Solid-state techniques can also be used to create devices known asnanoelectromechanical systems or NEMS which are related tomicroelectromechanical systems or MEMS
Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale write head to
deposit a chemical on a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip pen
nanolithography This fits into the larger subfield of nanolithography
TECHNIQUES
Nanomaterials
A unique aspect of nanotechnology is the vastly increased ratio of surface area to
volume present in many nanoscale materials which opens new possibilities in
surface-based science such as catalysis A number of physical phenomena become noticeably pronounced as the size of the system decreases These include
statistical mechanical effects as well as quantum mechanical effects for example
the ldquoquantum size effectrdquo where the electronic properties of solids are altered with
great reductions in particle size This effect does not come into play by goingfrom macro to micro dimensions However it becomes dominant when the
nanometer size range is reached Additionally a number of physical properties change when compared to macroscopic systems One example is the increase insurface area to volume of materials This catalytic activity also opens potential
risks in their interaction with biomaterials
Materials reduced to the nanoscale can suddenly show very different
properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale enabling uniqueapplications For instance opaque substances become transparent (copper) inert
materials become catalysts (platinum) 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 thefascination with nanotechnology stems from these unique quantum and surface phenomena that matter exhibits at the nanoscale
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 712
Nanomedicine
Drug Delivery
Drug delivery systems lipid- or polymer-based nanoparticles can bedesigned to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs The
strength of drug delivery systems is their ability to alter the pharmacokinetics and
biodistribution of the drug Nanoparticles have unusual properties that can be used toimprove drug delivery Where larger particles would have been cleared from the body
cells take up these nanoparticles because of their size Complex drug delivery
mechanisms are being developed including the ability to get drugs through cell walls andinto cells Efficiency is important because many diseases depend upon processes within
the cell and can only be impeded by drugs that make their way into the cell Triggered
response is one way for drug molecules to be used more efficiently Drugs are placed in
the body and only activate on encountering a particular signal For example a drug with poor solubility will be replaced by a drug delivery system where both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic environments exist improving the solubility Also a drug may cause tissue
damage but with drug delivery regulated drug release can eliminate the problem If adrug is cleared too quickly from the body this could force a patient to use high doses but
with drug delivery systems clearance can be reduced by altering the pharmacokinetics of
the drug Poor biodistribution is a problem that can affect normal tissues throughwidespread distribution but the particulates from drug delivery systems lower the volume
of distribution and reduce the effect on non-target tissue Potential nanodrugs will work
by very specific and well-understood mechanisms one of the major impacts of
nanotechnology and nanoscience will be in leading development of completely new
drugs with more useful behavior and less side effects
Cancer
A schematic illustration showing how nanoparticles or other other cancer drugs
might be used to treat cancer
Given such molecular tools we could design a small device able to identify andkill cancer cells The device would have a small computer several binding sites to
determine the concentration of specific molecules and a supply of some poison which
could be selectively released and was able to kill a cell identified as cancerousThe device would circulate freely throughout the body and would
periodically sample its environment by determining whether the binding sites were or
were not occupied Occupancy statistics would allow determination of concentration
Todays monoclonal antibodies are able to bind to only a single type of protein or other antigen and have not proven effective against most cancers
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 612
bull Many technologies descended from conventional solid-state silicon methods for
fabricating microprocessors are now capable of creating features smaller than 100
nm falling under the definition of nanotechnology Giant magnetoresistance- based hard drives already on the market fit this description [2] as do atomic layer
deposition (ALD) techniques
bull
Solid-state techniques can also be used to create devices known asnanoelectromechanical systems or NEMS which are related tomicroelectromechanical systems or MEMS
Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale write head to
deposit a chemical on a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip pen
nanolithography This fits into the larger subfield of nanolithography
TECHNIQUES
Nanomaterials
A unique aspect of nanotechnology is the vastly increased ratio of surface area to
volume present in many nanoscale materials which opens new possibilities in
surface-based science such as catalysis A number of physical phenomena become noticeably pronounced as the size of the system decreases These include
statistical mechanical effects as well as quantum mechanical effects for example
the ldquoquantum size effectrdquo where the electronic properties of solids are altered with
great reductions in particle size This effect does not come into play by goingfrom macro to micro dimensions However it becomes dominant when the
nanometer size range is reached Additionally a number of physical properties change when compared to macroscopic systems One example is the increase insurface area to volume of materials This catalytic activity also opens potential
risks in their interaction with biomaterials
Materials reduced to the nanoscale can suddenly show very different
properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale enabling uniqueapplications For instance opaque substances become transparent (copper) inert
materials become catalysts (platinum) 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 thefascination with nanotechnology stems from these unique quantum and surface phenomena that matter exhibits at the nanoscale
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 712
Nanomedicine
Drug Delivery
Drug delivery systems lipid- or polymer-based nanoparticles can bedesigned to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs The
strength of drug delivery systems is their ability to alter the pharmacokinetics and
biodistribution of the drug Nanoparticles have unusual properties that can be used toimprove drug delivery Where larger particles would have been cleared from the body
cells take up these nanoparticles because of their size Complex drug delivery
mechanisms are being developed including the ability to get drugs through cell walls andinto cells Efficiency is important because many diseases depend upon processes within
the cell and can only be impeded by drugs that make their way into the cell Triggered
response is one way for drug molecules to be used more efficiently Drugs are placed in
the body and only activate on encountering a particular signal For example a drug with poor solubility will be replaced by a drug delivery system where both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic environments exist improving the solubility Also a drug may cause tissue
damage but with drug delivery regulated drug release can eliminate the problem If adrug is cleared too quickly from the body this could force a patient to use high doses but
with drug delivery systems clearance can be reduced by altering the pharmacokinetics of
the drug Poor biodistribution is a problem that can affect normal tissues throughwidespread distribution but the particulates from drug delivery systems lower the volume
of distribution and reduce the effect on non-target tissue Potential nanodrugs will work
by very specific and well-understood mechanisms one of the major impacts of
nanotechnology and nanoscience will be in leading development of completely new
drugs with more useful behavior and less side effects
Cancer
A schematic illustration showing how nanoparticles or other other cancer drugs
might be used to treat cancer
Given such molecular tools we could design a small device able to identify andkill cancer cells The device would have a small computer several binding sites to
determine the concentration of specific molecules and a supply of some poison which
could be selectively released and was able to kill a cell identified as cancerousThe device would circulate freely throughout the body and would
periodically sample its environment by determining whether the binding sites were or
were not occupied Occupancy statistics would allow determination of concentration
Todays monoclonal antibodies are able to bind to only a single type of protein or other antigen and have not proven effective against most cancers
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 712
Nanomedicine
Drug Delivery
Drug delivery systems lipid- or polymer-based nanoparticles can bedesigned to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of drugs The
strength of drug delivery systems is their ability to alter the pharmacokinetics and
biodistribution of the drug Nanoparticles have unusual properties that can be used toimprove drug delivery Where larger particles would have been cleared from the body
cells take up these nanoparticles because of their size Complex drug delivery
mechanisms are being developed including the ability to get drugs through cell walls andinto cells Efficiency is important because many diseases depend upon processes within
the cell and can only be impeded by drugs that make their way into the cell Triggered
response is one way for drug molecules to be used more efficiently Drugs are placed in
the body and only activate on encountering a particular signal For example a drug with poor solubility will be replaced by a drug delivery system where both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic environments exist improving the solubility Also a drug may cause tissue
damage but with drug delivery regulated drug release can eliminate the problem If adrug is cleared too quickly from the body this could force a patient to use high doses but
with drug delivery systems clearance can be reduced by altering the pharmacokinetics of
the drug Poor biodistribution is a problem that can affect normal tissues throughwidespread distribution but the particulates from drug delivery systems lower the volume
of distribution and reduce the effect on non-target tissue Potential nanodrugs will work
by very specific and well-understood mechanisms one of the major impacts of
nanotechnology and nanoscience will be in leading development of completely new
drugs with more useful behavior and less side effects
Cancer
A schematic illustration showing how nanoparticles or other other cancer drugs
might be used to treat cancer
Given such molecular tools we could design a small device able to identify andkill cancer cells The device would have a small computer several binding sites to
determine the concentration of specific molecules and a supply of some poison which
could be selectively released and was able to kill a cell identified as cancerousThe device would circulate freely throughout the body and would
periodically sample its environment by determining whether the binding sites were or
were not occupied Occupancy statistics would allow determination of concentration
Todays monoclonal antibodies are able to bind to only a single type of protein or other antigen and have not proven effective against most cancers
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 812
The cancer killing device suggested here could incorporate a dozen different binding sites
and so could monitor the concentrations of a dozen different types of molecules Thecomputer could determine if the profile of concentrations fit a pre-programmed
cancerous profile and would when a cancerous profile was encountered release the
poison
Beyond being able to determine the concentrations of different compounds the cancer killer could also determine local pressure A pressure sensor little more than 10
nanometers on a side would be sufficient to detect pressure changes of less than 01atmospheres (a little over a pound per square inch See for example the discussion on
page 472 et sequitur of Nanosystems for the kind of analysis involved One atmosphere is~10^5 Pascals so PV in this case would be (01 x 10^5 ) x (10^-8)^3 or 10^4 x 10^ -24
or 10^-20 joules Multiple samples would be required to achieve reliable operation as kT
is ~4 x 10^-21 joules at body temperature Linear increases in sensor volume would produce exponential increases in immunity to thermal noise and linear improvements in
pressure sensitivity if that were to prove useful Doubling the linear dimensions of the
sensor would produce an eight-fold increase in both volume and pressure sensitivity)
As acoustic signals in the megahertz range are commonly employed in diagnostics
(ultrasound imaging of pregnant women for example) the ability to detect such signalswould permit the cancer killer to safely receive broadcast instructions By using several
macroscopic acoustic signal sources the cancer killer could determine its location withinthe body much as a radio receiver on earth can use the transmissions from several
satellites to determine its position (as in the widely used GPS system) Megahertz
transmission frequencies would also permit multiple samples of the pressure to be takenfrom the pressure sensor as the CPU would be operating at gigahertz frequencies
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 912
The cancer killer could thus determine that it was located in (say) the big toe If the
objective was to kill a colon cancer the cancer killer in the big toe would not release its
poison Very precise control over location of the cancer killers activities could thus beachieved
The cancer killer could readily be reprogrammed to attack different targets (and could infact be reprogrammed via acoustic signals transmitted while it was in the body) This
general architecture could provide a flexible method of destroying unwanted structures(bacterial infestations etc)
Nanosized batteries
Many years ago some people advanced that
personal machines like pocket calculators
miniaturization would have a natural limit the sizeof the tip of the human finger that enters the
numbers to be calculated Technology could easily
make a calculator with the size of a corn flake butwho could write the numbers and read the LCD
results
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to thescale of a nanometres (10-9 metres) More specifically nanorobotics refers to the still
largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building
nanorobots Nanorobots (nanobots nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices
ranging in size from 01-10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time
Another definition sometimes used is a robot which allows precision interactions withnanoscale objects or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution Following this definition
even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a
nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1012
Carbon nanotube
3D model of three types of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon A single wall carbon nanotube is a
one-atom thick graphene sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamlesscylinder with diameter of the order of a nanometer This results in a nanostructure where
the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10000 Such cylindrical carbon molecules have
novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in
nanotechnology electronics optics and other fields of materials science They exhibitextraordinary strength and unique electrical properties and are efficient conductors of
heat Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized
Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family which also includes
buckyballs Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape a nanotube is cylindrical with atleast one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure Their name
is derived from their size since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1112
nanometers (approximately 50000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) while
they can be up to several millimeters in length There are two main types of nanotubes
single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs)
The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry
specifically orbital hybridization The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composedentirely of sp2 bonds similar to those of graphite This bonding structure which is
stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond provides the molecules with their uniquestrength Nanotubes naturally align themselves into ropes held together by Van der
Waals forces Under high pressure nanotubes can merge together trading some sp2 bonds
for sp3 bonds giving great possibility for producing strong unlimited-length wiresthrough high-pressure nanotube linking
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology has been useful in many fields such as applied physics
materials science colloidal science device physics supramolecular chemistry and evenmechanical and electrical engineering
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
8142019 Royal College of Engineering and Technology Paper Presentation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullroyal-college-of-engineering-and-technology-paper-presentation 1212
