# Nanotechnology / Engineering at the atomic scale Canonical URL: https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-tech-nanotech Raw viewer URL: https://content.shipslides.com/d/catalog-tech-nanotech/raw Category: Technology Slides: 13 Updated: 2026-05-17T20:55:45.972Z Tags: catalog, tech, nanotech ## Summary 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.. ## Slide Outline 1. NANO TECH / NOLOGY 2. "Plenty of Room at the Bottom" 3. One nanometer is vanishingly small. 4. Scanning Tunneling Microscope / 1981 5. "IBM" in xenon atoms / 1989 6. A rolled sheet of graphene / 1991 7. One atom thick / 2004 8. Chemistry does the building for you. 9. Where nano already ships. 10. Patterning silicon at the atom limit. 11. Toxicology hasn't caught up. 12. What nano is , and isn't. 13. Where to go next. ## Slide Transcript ### Slide 1: NANOTECH /NOLOGY - // 01 · INTRODUCTION - Engineering at the atomic scale. - 10-9 meter - ~10 atoms across - since 1959 ### Slide 2: "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 3: 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 4: 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 5: "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 6: 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 7: 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 8: 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 9: 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 ## Related Decks - [AI — The Road to General Intelligence](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-tech-ai-revolution) - [Biotechnology — Editing biology like software](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-tech-biotech) - [COMPUTING / a brief history](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-tech-computing-history) - [Cryptography / Declassified](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-tech-cryptography)