What's the big deal?
Nanotechnology has captured our imagination and the corporate world's attention with the promise of creating tiny materials and devices with unprecedented capabilities. In fact, many of the things the technology can potentially enable seem right out of the realm of science fiction, from nanobots that will patrol our bloodstream for disease to chameleon-like cars that could assume different colors and shapes.

What is nanotechnology exactly? Why "nano"?
It's the study and manipulation of individual atoms and molecules to make novel materials, devices and systems. By allowing scientists to essentially construct matter from its basic building blocks, nanotechnology facilitates the enhancement of material properties as well as the creation of entirely new materials, properties and systems.

The field gets its name from the nanometer, which is a unit of measurement. The prefix "nano" stands for one-billionth; thus, a nanometer (nm) is one-billionth of a meter, which is about the width of 10 hydrogen atoms. To describe it another way, one nm is approximately 1/50,000th the diameter of a strand of human hair. Or it's about one-millionth the width of the period at the end of this sentence.

In this young science, the most common method of assembly is nanomanipulation or assembling things from the bottom up, atom by atom. There are two types of nanomanipulation--nanofabrication and self-assembly. Nanofabrication involves constructing products, structures and processes with atomic precision using man-made tools. Self-assembly is the process of atoms and molecules binding together in a specific, self-regulated way based on their size, shape, composition or chemical properties.

Brief history
Physicist Richard Feynman first introduced the concept to the public in 1959 during a groundbreaking speech in which he spoke about a connection between biology and manufacturing. Detailing how biological cells manufacture substances, he encouraged his audience to "consider the possibility that we, too, can make a thing very small, which does what we want--that we can manufacture an object that maneuvers at that level."

While Dr. Feynman outlined nanotechnology's basic ideas, Dr. K. Eric Drexler made its amazing potential famous decades later. In fact, nobody used the actual term "nanotechnology" until Dr. Drexler first said it in the 1980s as an MIT undergraduate. He brought widespread attention to the tiny science with his book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology.

In 1981, physicists Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Binning invented the scanning tunnel microscope, a new type of electron microscope that magnified objects 10 million times and allowed scientists to view single molecules and atomic surface structures for the first time. This accomplishment won Rohrer and Binning the Nobel Prize in 1986. Then in 1990, IBM scientists captured worldwide attention when they used the tip of a scanning tunnel microscope to get 35 xenon atoms to spell out the letters "IBM."

Another milestone in the burgeoning science took place in 1986, when scientists led by Dr. Richard Smalley discovered a third form of pure carbon--fullerenes. Among these large, carbon-cage molecules, C60--also known as a "buckyball"--is the most common. Smalley won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996 for discovering buckyballs.

Soon afterwards, an NEC employee, Sumio Iijima, unearthed a fourth form of pure carbon, a discovery that led to the fabrication of carbon nanotubes. Today, these two nanoscale structures--buckyballs and nanotubes--are the building blocks of nanotechnology.

Stumbling blocks?
While others are gushing over the far-reaching implications of nanotechnology, others are predicting far more undesirable consequences, citing studies indicating that nanometer-size particles can be poisonous in the environment and build up in animal organs. Moreover, engineered nanoparticles could have devastating health effects. Already, the first two studies examining the effect of exposure to nanoparticles on mice and rats have not yielded reassuring results, reporting a different and more serious lung damage than that caused by conventional toxic dusts.Still others believe that nanotechnology could even eradicate the human race, if nanomachines replicate themselves exponentially, digesting the living world and turning it into a mass of "gray goo."

According to a recent BusinessWeek article, the technology must address "thorny challenges" in order to realize its potential. For one, governments around the world must find ways to regulate new materials and treatments. Moreover, companies must handle new logistical dilemmas, such as controlling the quality of shipments of nearly invisible components including carbon nanotubes and silicon crystals. Moreover, the burgeoning industry must devise standards and enforcement practices to keep quality at a high level and to foster growth in the field.

On the bright side...
There seems to be no stopping this train. Nano-based products are already here--including new paint finishes in cars, more efficient catalytic converters, super-light tennis racquets, air permeation-inhibiting tennis balls, virtually invisible sunscreens, nanofiber-enhanced fabrics that repel stains, scratch-resistant coatings that toughen industrial tools, and extra-strong airplane bodies. And according to BusinessWeek, many companies are on the brink of releasing products with greater impact, such as portable diagnostic machines that have the capabilities of a full laboratory and nano sensors that could zero in on anthrax in airports.

Even with only a few products on the market, nanotechnology is already shaking up industries, say some observers. In one notable example, the science has enabled IBM to create super-spacious computer hard disks--a late 1990s innovation that has rattled the world of computer disk makers. The nano-enhanced computer disk drives could fit many gigabytes of information in a compact space using a new magnetic detector composed of exceptionally thin layers of metals, including a layer of ruthenium less than one-third of a nanometer in thickness. "The technology was so superior that everyone else had to start buying parts from IBM, because they couldn't manufacture competitive drives," Thomas Theis, head of physical science research at IBM Corp., tells The Washington Post.

And disk makers weren't the only ones jolted by the nanobased breakthrough. The voluminous disk drives, now able to pack hundreds of gigabytes of data, have enabled consumers to download massive amounts of music from the Internet onto a computer or to convert a cumbersome collection of compact discs into a digital library that can be stored in a small device like an iPod. In fact, the iPod's chief component is a diminutive computer disk based on IBM's innovation.

All these developments have sent record companies reeling. In a world of capacious disk drives, many people are now shunning record stores, forgoing compact discs and sharing files over the Internet. As a result, record sales have taken a dive. And movie companies now find themselves vulnerable as well and are going to court to prevent the same fate from befalling them.

Film and camera companies have been hard hit as well. Because the super-spacious disk drives allow users to store tens of thousands of pictures electronically and have therefore made digital photography affordable, the film business is stumbling. Without such capacious disk drives, the Internet as we know it would not be possible, says Stuart S.P. Parkin, the IBM scientist who was instrumental in developing the technology. Because of the nanobased innovation, computer disks are now able to hold all of the World Wide Web pages that companies and universities build. And IBM scientists including Parkin are now utilizing nanotechnology to find new data storage methods that can far surpass their last breakthrough.

Forecast
For a science that's only getting started, nanotechnology is already showing its ability to rewrite business rules in entire industries. While nobody knows the full extent of its impact, few doubt that it will be anything but huge. Or to put it another way, almost no industry will be beyond its reach, as it radically alters the way we design and fabricate thousands of products. And many experts say that nanotechnology will not only transform traditional industries, including automotive, aerospace, appliance, electronics, medical devices and consumer products, but also generate completely new ones.

Sources:

The Business of Nanotech
Stephen Baker and Adam Aston
BusinessWeek, February 14, 2005
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_07/b3920001_mz001.htm

Nanotech: Small Products, Big Potential
Austin Weber
Assembly Magazine, February 5, 2004
www.assemblymag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,6493,118358,00.html

If It's Nano, It's BIG
Justin Gillis and Jonathan Krim
Washington Post, February 22, 2004
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59607-2004Feb21.html

Profiting from Nanotechnology
Carl Wherrett and John Yelovich
The Motley Fool, February 24, 2004
www.fool.com/news/commentary/2004/commentary040224wy.htm

For Science, Nanotech Poses Big Unknowns
Rick Weiss
Washington Post, February 1, 2004
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1487-2004Jan31.html