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Nanotechnology / Engineering at the atomic scale

Caltech, December 29, 1959 . Richard Feynman delivers the founding lecture of nanotechnology before the field exists.

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Caltech, December 29, 1959 . Richard Feynman delivers the founding lecture of nanotechnology before the field exists. Key sections include: NANO TECH / NOLOGY; "Plenty of Room at the Bottom"; One nanometer is vanishingly small.; Scanning Tunneling Microscope / 1981; "IBM" in xenon atoms / 1989; A rolled sheet of graphene / 1991; One atom thick / 2004; Chemistry does the building for you.; Where nano already ships.; Patterning silicon at the atom limit..

Key sections

  • 01NANO TECH / NOLOGY
  • 02"Plenty of Room at the Bottom"
  • 03One nanometer is vanishingly small.
  • 04Scanning Tunneling Microscope / 1981
  • 05"IBM" in xenon atoms / 1989
  • 06A rolled sheet of graphene / 1991
  • 07One atom thick / 2004
  • 08Chemistry does the building for you.
  • 09Where nano already ships.
  • 10Patterning silicon at the atom limit.
  • 11Toxicology hasn't caught up.
  • 12What nano is , and isn't.
  • 13Where to go next.

Topics covered

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Slide outline
  1. 01NANO TECH / NOLOGY
  2. 02"Plenty of Room at the Bottom"
  3. 03One nanometer is vanishingly small.
  4. 04Scanning Tunneling Microscope / 1981
  5. 05"IBM" in xenon atoms / 1989
  6. 06A rolled sheet of graphene / 1991
  7. 07One atom thick / 2004
  8. 08Chemistry does the building for you.
  9. 09Where nano already ships.
  10. 10Patterning silicon at the atom limit.
  11. 11Toxicology hasn't caught up.
  12. 12What nano is , and isn't.
  13. 13Where to go next.
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Presentation Transcript

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Slide 01

NANOTECH /NOLOGY

  • // 01 · INTRODUCTION
  • Engineering at the atomic scale.
  • 10-9 meter
  • ~10 atoms across
  • since 1959
Slide 02

"Plenty of Room at the Bottom"

  • // 02 · ORIGINS
  • Caltech, December 29, 1959. Richard Feynman delivers the founding lecture of nanotechnology before the field exists.
  • "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom."
  • — R. Feynman, APS lecture, 1959
Slide 03

One nanometer is vanishingly small.

  • // 03 · THE SCALE
  • 1 nm = 1 / 1,000,000,000 of a meter. About ~10 atoms laid side by side. A human hair is roughly 80,000 nm wide.
  • 1 m
  • human
  • 1 mm
  • grain of sand — 10-3
  • 1 µm
  • bacterium — 10-6
  • 100 nm
  • virus — 10-7
  • 2 nm
  • DNA double helix
  • 0.1 nm
  • hydrogen atom — 10-10
Slide 04

Scanning Tunneling Microscope / 1981

  • // 04 · SEEING ATOMS
  • A sharp metal tip hovers a few atomic diameters above a surface. Quantum tunneling current resolves individual atoms.
  • Invented by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM Zürich
  • Nobel Prize in Physics, 1986
  • Resolution: lateral ~0.1 nm, vertical ~0.01 nm
  • The first instrument to see — and later move — single atoms
Slide 05

"IBM" in xenon atoms / 1989

  • // 05 · MOVING ATOMS
  • Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer at IBM Almaden positioned 35 xenon atoms on a nickel surface to spell their employer's logo.
  • Feynman's 1959 conjecture, demonstrated. The image circled the world. From that point on the atomic scale was not just visible — it was writable.
Slide 06

A rolled sheet of graphene / 1991

  • // 06 · CARBON NANOTUBES
  • Sumio Iijima reports multi-walled carbon nanotubes at NEC. Diameter ~1–100 nm, length up to centimeters.
  • Tensile strength ~100× steel at 1/6 the density
  • Electrical conductivity rivaling copper
  • Thermal conductivity rivaling diamond
  • Either metallic or semiconducting depending on chirality
Slide 07

One atom thick / 2004

  • // 07 · GRAPHENE
  • Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolate graphene from graphite using adhesive tape at the University of Manchester.
  • Two-dimensional honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms
  • Charge mobility ~200,000 cm²/Vs
  • ~200× stronger than steel by weight
  • Nobel Prize in Physics, 2010
Slide 08

Chemistry does the building for you.

  • // 08 · SELF-ASSEMBLY
  • Push molecules into the right environment and they organize themselves — driven by hydrogen bonding, van der Waals forces, hydrophobic effects.
  • DNA origami: a long strand folded by short staples into shapes (Rothemund, 2006)
  • Block copolymers: phase separation creates regular nanostructures
  • Lipid bilayers: the same self-assembly that built the first cells
  • Bottom-up complement to top-down lithography
Slide 09

Where nano already ships.

  • // 09 · APPLICATIONS
  • Most of the field's payoff so far is materials science, not tiny robots. The applications are real and quietly pervasive.
  • drug delivery
  • lipid nanoparticles for mRNA vaccines
  • catalysis
  • platinum NPs in fuel cells & converters
  • sensors
  • CNT & graphene FETs detect single molecules
  • batteries
  • silicon NPs & nano-coatings boost capacity
  • displays
  • quantum-dot LEDs (QLED) tune color by size
  • coatings
  • self-cleaning, anti-reflective, anti-microbial
Slide 10

Patterning silicon at the atom limit.

  • // 10 · LITHOGRAPHY
  • The most economically important nanotech: photolithography on silicon. Each generation shrinks the feature size.
  • Deep UV (193 nm): printed nodes from 130 nm down to 7 nm via multi-patterning
  • EUV (13.5 nm): ASML's twin-lasered tin-droplet light source — the only commercial path below 7 nm
  • Current leading nodes: ~3 nm (TSMC, Samsung), with 2 nm in pilot
  • "Nodes" are marketing — physical gate pitches are larger, but transistors are nano-scale features
Slide 11

Toxicology hasn't caught up.

  • // 11 · RISK
  • A particle small enough to engineer is small enough to cross membranes you don't want it to cross.
  • Nanoparticles can enter cells, cross blood-brain & placental barriers, accumulate in lungs
  • Engineered TiO₂, silver, and CNTs raise occupational-exposure concerns
  • Environmental persistence: many nanomaterials are designed not to degrade
  • Regulation lags — "nano" rarely appears on ingredient labels
Slide 12

What nano is, and isn't.

  • // 12 · THE HONEST ASSESSMENT
  • DELIVERED
  • Stronger composites & coatings
  • Better catalysts & sensors
  • Quantum dots in TVs & displays
  • Lipid NPs that delivered the COVID vaccines
  • Three decades of Moore's-Law lithography
  • DISTANT
  • Drexler-style "molecular assemblers"
  • Programmable diamondoid mechanosynthesis
  • Self-replicating nanobots
  • Cell-by-cell medical repair machines
  • The science fiction of "molecular nanotechnology" has not arrived. The materials science it inspired quietly powers your phone, your battery, and your vaccine.
Slide 13

Where to go next.

  • // 13 · FURTHER READING
  • REFERENCES
  • Feynman, R. — "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", APS, 1959
  • Binnig & Rohrer — Helvetica Physica Acta, 1982 (STM)
  • Eigler & Schweizer — Nature 344, 524 (1990)
  • Iijima, S. — Nature 354, 56 (1991) (CNTs)
  • Novoselov & Geim et al. — Science 306, 666 (2004) (graphene)
  • Rothemund, P.W.K. — Nature 440, 297 (2006) (DNA origami)
  • Drexler, K.E. — Engines of Creation, 1986
  • VIDEO
  • Feynman / Plenty of Room →
  • Graphene / Nobel Prize →
  • // END OF DECK — thank you
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