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500+ Words Essay on Nanotechnology in English: A New Revolution

All important topics related to the essay on Nanotechnology are discussed in this article such as the Introduction of Nanotechnology, What is Nanotechnology, the Classification and Impact of Nanotechnology, Nanotechnology development in India, and many more.

Man is always looking for new things to improve his life. Computer technology has changed our lifestyle today. Everything changed in business and healthcare.

With the advancement of chemistry and physics, scientists discovered a new field called nanotechnology. In 1974, Japanese professor Nario Taniguchi first used the term “nanotechnology”. This was followed by the introduction of other nanotech sectors according to demand and usage.

• 1.1 What is Nanotechnology?
• 1.2 Classification of Nanotechnology
• 1.3 Impact of Nanotechnology
• 1.4 Nanotechnology Development in India
• 1.5 Conclusion about Nanotechnology

Essay on Nanotechnology in English

Nanotechnology is the study of extremely small structures. The prefix “nano” is a Greek word meaning “dwarf”. The word “Nano” refers to a very small or small size.

Nanotechnology is the technology of the future and it will help in the manufacturing revolution. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, perhaps the width of three or four atoms. A human hair is about 25000 nanometers wide. In such a situation, it can be estimated how small these machines will be. The development and progress of artificial intelligence and molecular technology have given rise to this new form of technology that is called Nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is the engineering of small machines. This is done inside individual nano factories using the technologies and equipment being developed today to create advanced products.

What is Nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology is the science of manipulating materials, especially at the atomic or molecular scale, to manufacture microscopic devices like robots.

Nanotechnology, or nanotech for short, deals with matter at a level that most of us find difficult to imagine because it involves objects with dimensions of 100 billionths of a meter (1/ 800th of the thickness of a human hair) or less.

Classification of Nanotechnology

The term “nanotechnology” coined in 1974 is manipulation, observation, and measurement at a scale of less than 100nm (one nanometer is one-millionth of a millimeter. It offers unprecedented opportunities for progress – defeating poverty, starvation, and disease, opening up space, and expanding human capacities.

Impact of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is sometimes referred to as a general-purpose technology because, in its advanced form, it will have a significant impact on almost all industries and all sectors of society. Nanotechnology is the science, engineering, and technology that operates on the nanoscale, which is approximately 1 to 100 nanometers. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the study and application of extremely small things and can be used in all other science fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, and engineering.

It is also important to understand that nanoscale substances occur in nature. For example, hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein found in red blood cells (RBC), is 5.5 nanometers in diameter. Naturally occurring nanomaterials are present all around us, such as in fire smoke, volcanic ash, and sea spray.

Nanotechnology Development in India

The Nanotechnology Initiative in India is a multi-agency effort. The major agencies taking major initiatives for capacity building are the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Information Technology (DIT).

Other agencies that have shown major participation in the field of nanotechnology are the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In addition, nanotechnology was initiated with the Nano Science and Technology Initiative (NSTI) in the 10th Five-Year Plan as a specialized area of research.

Some of the major initiatives in Nanotechnology are the launch of the Nano Mission and the introduction of PG programs in Nano Science and Technology. Nanotechnology intervention in a mission mode in the area of solar and hydro technology was also initiated.

Conclusion about Nanotechnology

Today’s scientists and engineers are exploring a variety of ways to intentionally fabricate materials at the nanoscale to take advantage of their advanced properties, such as higher strength, lighter weight, enhanced control of the light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity, than their larger-scale counterparts.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ )

What is Nanoscience?

Answer: Nanoscience is the study of the properties and occurrence of materials with specific sizes in the range of 1–100 nm.

Answer: Nanotechnology is the technology that creates functional materials, devices, and systems through the control of matter on the nanometer length scale (1–100 nm) and exploits novel phenomena and properties (physical, chemical, and biological) at the nanometer scale or In a simple called atomic and at the molecular level.

How is nanotechnology used in everyday life?

Answer: Nanotechnology has an impact on almost all areas of food and agricultural systems, like food security, disease treatment delivery methods, new tools development for molecular and cellular biology, new materials for pathogen detection, and protection of the environment.

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Nanotechnology: Applications and Implications Research Paper

What is nanotechnology, applications of nanotechnology, concerns about nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is an emerging technology which is developing at an exponential rate. The technology utilizes novel characteristics of materials that are exhibited only at nanoscale level. Although still in early stages, this technology has signaled potential and breakthroughs in many areas such as medicine, computer technology, food industry, building construction, environment protection to mention just a few.

The many exciting products it promises have served to draw a lot of attention to it. Many findings of nanotechnology are quickly being implemented in viable commercial products. This is in spite of insufficient toxicological data about the environmental and biological effects of such nanomaterials.

As nanotechnology gains widespread application in various disciplines, it is imperative to understand its potential effects. This is important for its long terms sustainability. It is also equally critical to set up necessary control legislations and benchmark standards to control research and commercial application of this emerging technology.

The last half of the last century witnessed the technological world going “micro” evidenced by microdevices and microparticles. However, from the start of 21 st century, the “micro” is poised to give way to the “Nano”. Nanotechnology is an emerging technology that is offering promises of breakthroughs cutting across multiple subjects such as medicine, food industry, energy sector and environmental remediation to mention a few.

The Potential of nanotechnology to solve hitherto “unsolvable” problems by conventional technologies has attracted the attention of government and commercial corporations with diverse interests. Billions of dollars for research and development continue to be channeled to nanotechnology projects all over the world. This paper presents the potential applications of nano-inventions in selected areas of medicine, pollution control, energy, construction, computer technology, and food sectors.

While the benefits of this emerging technology appear to be immense, its environmental and social effects also need to be given as much attention. Nanotechnology is a relatively nascent industry and its potential uses and effects need to be exhaustively established researched before mass production and commercialization. Nanotechnology is the most significant emerging technology today and will play a major role in social, economic, and environmental developments in this century.

Nanotechnology is the “creation of functional materials, devices, and systems through the manipulation of matter at a length of ~1-100 nm” (Srinivas, et al., 2010).

At such scale, matter exhibits new properties unlike those observed at larger scales (Wickson, Baun, & Grieger, 2010). This includes enhanced plasticity, change in thermal properties, enhanced reactivity and catalysis, negative refractivity, faster ion/electron transport and novel quantum mechanical properties (Vaddiraju, Tomazos, Burgess, Jain, & Papadimitrakopoulos, 2010).

The novel properties of matter at nanoscale has been explained by the presence of quantum effect, increase in surface area to volume ratio and alterations in atomic configurations (Wickson et al., 2010). The properties of nanomaterials may be characterized in terms of size, shape, crystallinity, light absorption and scattering, chemical composition, surface area, assembly structure, surface structure, as well as surface charge.

Some of the techniques used in nanoscience to study these properties include Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDX), Atomic Force Microscopy (ATM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis-nIR Spectroscopy, Extended X-ray Absorption Fine structure (EXAFS) , Photoluminescence Spectroscopy (XPS), Chemisorption among other new only developed ones.

The applications of nanotechnology are as a result of investigating and utilizing these properties (Wickson et al., 2010). There are a host of substances utilised in nanotechnology, the most researched ones are carbon, silicon dioxide and titanium dioxide (Robinson, 2010). Others are aluminum, zinc, silver, copper and gold (Robinson, 2010).

Nanotechnology projects continue to channel out a wide range of applications at a very high rate (Dang, Zhang, Fan, Chen, & C.Roco, 2010). This exponential growth rate is evident from the number of patent applications. Data by Dang and fellow researchers (2010) shows that patent application for nanotechnology inventions in developed countries increased from zero percent in 1991 to about 27 % in 2008 and that this growth is set to continue for the better part of this century.

Spurred by huge funding from government and commercial players, nanotechnology projects continue to release more and more potential innovations into the market. This may be an indication that nanotechnology will in future play a pivotal role in scientific and economic development (Dang et al., 2010). Nanotechnology may be a critical solution for companies seeking to stay ahead of competitors. The potential of nanotechnology appears limitless as can be shown by the number of areas where it is already being applied.

Nanomedicine

This field encompasses pharmaceutical and medical nanotechnology. It is one of the most active areas of nanotechnology due it promises of novel therapeutic applications in crucial areas such as cancer therapy, drug delivery, imaging, biosensors and diagnosis.

Nanoparticles have been cited as having great potential in vivo imaging applications (Solomon & D’Souza, 2011). Already, a surface functionalized iron oxide nanoparticle is being used in modern imaging technologies such as magnetomotive imaging. This type of imaging is comparatively powerful and is expected to improve disease diagnosis significantly.

Nanoparticles are also being engineered to be used to enhance drug biodistribution and delivery to target sites in the body. This approach seeks to deliver drug agents to affected sites without damaging the healthy cells. This has been promising in the case of solid tumors whereby a transferrin-modified cyclodextrin nanoparticle successfully delivered anti-tumor agents to the target tumor site in human subjects (Solomon & D’Souza, 2011).

Nanoparticles have also displayed the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, a major impediment to drug delivery to the brain, thus offering hope of improving the efficacy of some drugs. It has also been reported that nanoparticles conjugated to model antigens have been able to stimulate immunity in mice (Solomon & D’Souza, 2011). This indicates potential for application in improving vaccine therapy.

Elsewhere, nanoparticles have been used to engineer self-assembled tissue capable of repairing damaged tissues in rats though this is yet to be replicated in humans. Another area that has generated much interest is in production of microscopic and highly sensitive in vitro and in vivo biosensors. This application holds the promise of increasing portability and lowering the cost of such devices.

Nanoparticles are increasingly gaining application in cancer therapy. Nanoparticles are for this purpose is characterized by surface modifications that enable them interact with receptors of target cells. This makes it possible to develop therapies targeting cancerous cells only while leaving out healthy cells.

Free radical such as superoxide, hydroxides and peroxides has been known to produce disease initiating changes in cells. To counter this adverse effect, neuroprotective compound is being developed using carbon-60 fullerene (Silva, 2010). In terms of detection of biochemical compounds carbon nanotubes have been used for detection DNA and proteins in serum samples.

Nanotechnology has opened up new possibilities in regard to medical application. The technology has potential to alter medical therapy in many ways.

Pollution control

Waste disposal remains a challenging task for many industries. Current waste disposal technologies are expensive and require a lot of time to render the waste less harmful. In addition, current processes such as air stripping, carbon adsorption, biological reactors or chemical precipitation produce highly toxic wastes that require further disposal (Karn, Kuiken, & Otto, 2009).

Nanoremediation is a new form of waste disposal mechanism that utilizes nanoparticles to detoxify pollutants. nZVI, a nanoscale zero-valent iron has gained widespread use in this area and has been applied in remediating polluted in situ groundwater. This technology has been cited as cost-effective and faster compared to traditional pump-and-treat methods (Karn et al., 2009).

Other forms of pollution solutions employ the use of nanocatalysts. Just like biological and chemical catalysts, nanocatalysts speed up chemical reaction leading to decomposition of the reactive species. This is already being used to detoxify harmful vapor in cars and industrial machinery. Notable ongoing projects in pollution control include research on the recycling greenhouse gas emissions using carbon nanotubes (CNT) (Zhao, 2009).

For his effort, the researcher for this “green” solution received an $ 85,000 Foundation Research Excellence Award (Zhao, 2009). Nanoparticles have also been used to treat highly polluted industrial waste (Zhao, 2009). Nanotechnology is also aiding in improving current water purification technologies. The technology has made it possible to decrease the membrane pores to nanoscale levels leading to greater filtration power.

Energy applications

Nanotechnology has offered promises and potential for development of efficient and long-lasting energy devices. Nanofabricated energy storage compounds have been cited as potentially beneficial as they may serve as replacement for traditional environmentally harmful fossil fuels.

It is expected that nanoscience for energy application will transfer the nano-scale effects of energy carriers such as photons, phonons, electrons, and molecules to conventional photovoltaic, photochemical solar cells, thermoelectric, fuel cells and batteries. This is expected to greatly enhance the capacity, life, and efficiency of such energy producers. Laboratory tests have already shown that the nanomaterials-based electrodes enhance the charge storage capacity and reaction rates in fuel cells.

Also, nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and carbon nanohorns are proving useful in energy application due to their ability to provide excellent conductivity for charge transport (Yimin, 2011). Some nanomaterials e.g., PbTe-based quantum dot superlattice system, have demonstrated improved energy conversion efficiency. This property has been suggested to be replicated to produce more energy-efficient thermoelectric devices used to convert waste heat energy into electricity (Yimin, 2011).

This is necessary as the energy efficiency of most thermoelectric devices is very low. In terms of energy conservation, semiconductor nanostructures are actively being explored for the development of highly luminous and efficient light-emitting diodes (LED). This can have a significant impact in energy conservation as lighting uses about 20% of the total electric power generated (Yimin, 2011). Nanostructures are also gaining application in solar energy technologies.

Nonastructured photovoltaic materials have been cited as potentially significant in improving the efficiency of solar energy-based devices. To this end, nanomaterials, such as quantum dots and dye-sensitized semiconductors, are being tested for the possible production of next-generation solar devices projects (Yimin, 2011).

Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize man-made energy. Although still, in early phases, nanomaterials have the potential to deliver efficient, high capacity, clean and more durable energy solutions. The challenge, perhaps, remains the development of controlled large scale manufacturing approaches that will ensure greater realization of the powers of these promising materials.

Food nanotechnology

Application of nanoscience in food industry has opened up numerous new possibilities for the food sector. Areas that have gained prominence in this area include food packaging and preservation. Attention to this sector has been contributed by projections of enormous economic gains it offers. Data shows that sales of nanotechnology products to food and beverage packaging sector is expected to surpass US $20.4 billion beyond 2010 (Sozer & Kokini, 2008).

Already, bionanocomposites, which are nanostructures with enhanced mechanical, thermal, and porosity properties, are being used in food packaging. Additional benefits of bionanocomposites include being environmentally friendly as are they are biodegradable as well as increasing the food shelf life (Sozer & Kokini, 2008). Bioactive packaging materials made of nanomaterials have been used in controlling oxidation of foodstuffs and formation of undesirable textures and flavors (Sozer & Kokini, 2008).

One of the nanomaterials with high potential here is carbon nanotube. Apart from offering enhanced mechanical properties to food packaging materials, it has been discovered that the same tube could be possessing effective antimicrobial effects.

This is due to the fact that Escherichia coli bacteria have been found to immediately die upon coming in contact with aggregated nanotubes (Sekhon, 2010). Another area being explored is the fortification of food packaging with nano active additives that would allow controlled release of nutrient into the stored food.

Nanomaterials have also been said to have potential application in food preservation. Nanosensors made to fluoresce in different colors when in contact with food spoilage microorganisms, have been selected as a possible solution. This may reduce the time it takes to detect food spoilage and thus lessen cases of food poisoning.

Examples are nanosilica, already used in food packaging and nanoselenium, which has been added into some beverage and said to enhance uptake of selenium. Nano-iron is also available and is used as a health supplement, although it can also be used in the treatment of contaminated water. Said to be still under development, nanosalt has to be cited as having the benefit of enabling reduction in dietary salt intake.

Another nanoagent, nanoemulsion is already being used to add nanoemulfied bioctives and flavors to beverages (Sekhon, 2010). Nanoemulsions have also proved effective against gram-negative bacteria, a major food pathogen (Sekhon, 2010). Elsewhere scientists have also reported improved bioavailability and color changes brought about by iron/zinc-containing nanostructures.

Other areas being explored include probiotics and edible nanocoatings. Probiotics will entail using nanofabrications to deliver beneficial bacterial cells to the gut system while edible nanocoatings will be in the form of edible coatings to provide barrier to moisture, gas exchange, and deliver food enhancement additives.

It is clear that nanotechnology presents unlimited opportunities to the food industry. However, just like the controversy that followed GMOs food, foodstuffs bearing nano components are surely bound to generate a prolonged public debate. This is because the effects of such miniscule particles in the consumer body remain unclear. Nevertheless, given the nascent nature of nanotechnology, such opposition is expected.

Computer technology

Nanotechnology is expected to revolutionize computer architecture technologies. Current processors have an unofficial limit of 4 GHz. This year a synthetic material capable of replacing silicon, the long-standing semiconductor of choice in the 20th century, and attaining a clock speed of 6 GHz was unveiled (Partyka & Mazur, 2012).

This is because nanotechnology presents the possibility of adding even more transistors per a nanometric length than what is possible through current microprocessor development technologies.

What is even more interesting is that this development could not have come at a more opportune time as silicon processors are expected to have attained their maximum performance by 2020 (Partyka & Mazur, 2012). This year scientists have also announced the successful development of a Nano transistor “based on single molecules of a chemical compound” (Partyka & Mazur, 2012, n.p).

Application of nanotechnology in construction

Nanotechnology portends immense benefits for the future of the construction sector. From the amazing self-cleaning window to the “smog-eating” concrete, this technology has the capability of transforming building materials to new levels in terms of energy, light, strength, security, beauty and intelligence (Halicioglu, 2009).

The development of super-strength plastics has a possible application in diverse areas such as in cars, trucks, and planes where it can serve to replace heavy metals leading to significant energy savings (Zhao, 2009). Nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes have been found to possess strength and flexibility on a much larger scale compared known strong materials such as steel. Nanocoatings have been suggested as possible solutions to insulation, microbial activity, and mildew growth in buildings (Halicioglu, 2009).

Nanotechnology is expected to produce unique bio-products characterized by hyper-performance and superior serviceability (Halicioglu, 2009).

Notable nanoparticles already in use in construction are titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) and carbon nanotubes (CNT’s). Titanium dioxide is being used in degrading pollutants in buildings while carbon nanotubes have been applied in strengthening and monitoring concrete (Halicioglu, 2009).

Just like other applications of nanotechnology, nanomaterials are used in construction sector yet their environmental, health effect, and other risks remain unclear. However, despite this drawback, nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize building design and construction in the near future.

Concerns have been raised about nanotechnology. Nanoparticles have been said to be potentially unsafe for the biological system (Vishwakarma, Samal, & N.Manoharan, 2010). Owing to their small size, these particles can gain entry into the body easily through the skin, mucosal membranes of nose or lungs through inhalation. Their catalytic properties are likely to produce dangerous reactive radicals such as hyper-reactive oxygen with much toxic effects.

These reactive radicals have been linked to chronic diseases such as cancer. Once inside the body, nanoparticles may reach the brain or liver. This is because nanoparticles are able to cross the blood-brain barrier. Their effects on these organs are yet to be established. The nature of their toxicity remains a speculation, but the disruption in the body chemistry cannot be ignored.

The Royal Society of UK’s National Science Academy has reported that nanotube can cause lung fibrosis when inhaled in large amount over long periods (Vishwakarma et al., 2010). Early research has also shown that some types of nanoparticles could cause lung damage in rats (Vishwakarma et al., 2010).

Possible environmental effects of nanoparticles have also been documented. Because they are easily airborne, and adhesive, it is claimed nanoparticles may enter the food chain with profound undesirable changes on the ecosystem.

Currently, there are no standard techniques for assessing nanocompounds hazards. This, together with the unique features of nanomaterials – large surface area, multi forms, makes risk assessment difficult (Williams, Kulinowski, White, & Louis, 2010). Quality control for nanomaterials manufacturing, terminology as well as nomenclature standards are also lacking.

Additionally, it is alarming that currently there is no data on potential hazards, dose-response relationships and exposure levels of nanomaterials used in numerous applications (Musee, Brent, & Asthton, 2010). It is also worth stating that much of current funding on nanotechnology is directed toward potentially viable commercial projects while little is channeled towards risk assessment initiatives (Musee et al., 2010). This needs to be reversed.

Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize our lives. This is because it presents almost unlimited potential to make remarkable changes in virtually all fields ranging from medicine, computer technology, construction, environmental remediation, food industry, to new energy sources.

Despite presenting many potential benefits in many areas, nanotechnology of today is still in its infancy as just a few projects have been commercialized. Many are yet to undergo full lifecycle assessment. The number of nanotechnology innovations continues to rise. However, the same cannot be said of research about their potential effects on environment and biological systems.

As the world readily adapts to this new technology wave, concomitant effort should be directed to the understanding of their possible impacts. This is essential to ensure that nanomaterials do not become the new hazard of 21 st century. The long-long term sustainability of this new technology may depend on the establishment of its risks.

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Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the study and manipulation of individual atoms and molecules.

Biology, Health, Chemistry, Engineering, Physics

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Nanotechnology involves the understanding and control of matter at the nanometer -scale. The so-called nanoscale deals with dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers .

A nanometer is an extremely small unit of length—a billionth (10 - 9) of a meter. Just how small is a nanometer (nm)?

On the nanometer-scale, materials may exhibit unusual properties. When you change the size of a particle , it can change color, for example. That’s because in nanometer-scale particles, the arrangement of atoms reflects light differently. Gold can appear dark red or purple, while silver can appear yellowish or amber -colored.

Nanotechnology can increase the surface area of a material. This allows more atoms to interact with other materials. An increased surface area is one of the chief reasons nanometer-scale materials can be stronger, more durable , and more conductive than their larger-scale (called bulk) counterparts.

Nanotechnology is not microscopy. "Nanotechnology is not simply working at ever smaller dimensions," the U.S.-based National Nanotechnology Initiative says. "Rather, working at the nanoscale enables scientists to utilize the unique physical, chemical, mechanical, and optical properties of materials that naturally occur at that scale."

Scientists study these properties for a range of uses, from altering consumer products such as clothes to revolutionizing medicine and tackling environmental issues.

Classifying Nanomaterials

There are different types of nanomaterials, and different ways to classify them.

Natural nanomaterials, as the name suggests, are those that occur naturally in the world. These include particles that make up volcanic ash , smoke, and even some molecules in our bodies, such as the hemoglobin in our blood. The brilliant colors of a peacock’s feathers are the result of spacing between nanometer-scale structures on their surface.

Artificial nanomaterials are those that occur from objects or processes created by people. Examples include exhaust from fossil fuel burning engines and some forms of pollution . But while some of these just happen to be nanomaterials—vehicle exhaust, for instance, was not developed as one—scientists and engineers are working to create them for use in industries from manufacturing to medicine. These are called intentionally produced nanomaterials.

Fullerenes and Nanoparticles

One way to classify nanomaterials is between fullerenes and nanoparticles. This classification includes both naturally occurring and artificial nanomaterials.

Fullerenes are allotropes of carbon. Allotropes are different molecular forms of the same element. The most familiar carbon allotropes are probably diamond and graphite , a type of coal .

Fullerenes are atom-thick sheets of another carbon allotrope, graphene , rolled into spheres or tubes.

The most familiar type of spherical fullerene is probably the buckminsterfullerene, nicknamed the buckyball . Buckyballs are nanometer-sized carbon molecules shaped like soccer balls—tightly bonded hexagons and pentagons .

Buckyballs are very stable—able to withstand extreme temperatures and pressure. For this reason, buckyballs are able to exist in extremely harsh environments, such as outer space. In fact, buckyballs are the largest molecules ever discovered in space, detected around planetary nebula in 2010.

Buckyballs’ cage-like structure seems to protect any atom or molecule trapped within it. Many researchers are experimenting with "impregnating" buckyballs with elements, such as helium. These impregnated buckyballs may make excellent chemical "tracers," meaning scientists could follow them as they wind through a system. For example, scientists could track water pollution kilometers away from where it entered a river, lake, or ocean.

Tubular fullerenes are called nanotubes . Thanks to the way carbon atoms bond to each other, carbon nanotubes are remarkably strong and flexible. Carbon nanotubes are harder than diamond and more flexible than rubber.

Carbon nanotubes hold great potential for science and technology. The U.S. space agency NASA, for example, is experimenting with carbon nanotubes to produce "blacker than black" coloration on satellites . This would reduce reflection, so data collected by the satellite are not "polluted" by light.

Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles can include carbon, like fullerenes, as well as nanometer-scale versions of many other elements, such as gold, silicon, and titanium. Quantum dots , a type of nanoparticle, are semiconductors made of different elements, including cadmium and sulfur. Quantum dots have unusual fluorescent capabilities. Scientists and engineers have experimented with using quantum dots in everything from photovoltaic cells (used for solar power) to fabric dye.

The properties of nanoparticles have been important in the study of nanomedicine. One promising development in nanomedicine is the use of gold nanoparticles to fight lymphoma , a type of cancer that attacks cholesterol cells. Researchers have developed a nanoparticle that looks like a cholesterol cell, but with gold at its core. When this nanoparticle attaches to a lymphoma cell, it prevents the lymphoma from "feeding" off actual cholesterol cells, starving it to death.

Intentionally Produced Nanomaterials

There are four main types of intentionally produced nanomaterials: carbon-based, metal-based, dendrimers , and nanocomposites .

Carbon-based nanomaterials

Carbon-based nanomaterials are intentionally produced fullerenes. These include carbon nanotubes and buckyballs.

Carbon nanotubes are often produced using a process called carbon assisted vapor deposition. (This is the process NASA uses to create its "blacker than black" satellite color.) In this process, scientists establish a substrate , or base material, where the nanotubes grow. Silicon is a common substrate. Then, a catalyst helps the chemical reaction that grows the nanotubes. Iron is a common catalyst. Finally, the process requires a heated gas, blown over the substrate and catalyst. The gas contains the carbon that grows into nanotubes.

Metal-based nanomaterials

Metal-based nanomaterials include gold nanoparticles and quantum dots.

Quantum dots are synthesized using different methods. In one method, small crystals of two different elements are formed under high temperatures. By controlling the temperature and other conditions, the size of the nanometer-scale crystals can be carefully controlled. The size is what determines the fluorescent color. These nanocrystals are quantum dots—tiny semiconductors—suspended in a solution.

Dendrimers are complex nanoparticles built from linked, branched units. Each dendrimer has three sections: a core, an inner shell, and an outer shell. In addition, each dendrimer has branched ends. Each part of a dendrimer—its core, inner shell, outer shell, and branched ends—can be designed to perform a specific chemical function.

Dendrimers can be fabricated either from the core outward (divergent method) or from the outer shell inward (convergent method).

Like buckyballs and some other nanomaterials, dendrimers have strong, cage-like cavities in their structure. Scientists and researchers are experimenting with dendrimers as multifunctional drug-delivery methods. A single dendrimer, for example, may deliver a drug to a specific cell, and also trace that drug's impact on the surrounding tissue .

Nanocomposites

Nanocomposites combine nanomaterials with other nanomaterials, or with larger, bulk materials. There are three main types of nanocomposites: nano ceramic matrix composites ( NCMCs ), metal matrix composites ( MMCs ), and polymer matrix composites (PMCs).

NCMCs, sometimes called nanoclays , are often used to coat packing materials. They strengthen the material’s heat resistance and flame- retardant properties.

MMCs are stronger and lighter than bulk metals. MMCs may be used to reduce heat in computer " server farms" or build vehicles light enough to airlift.

Industrial plastics are often composed of PMCs. One promising area of nanomedical research is creating PMC "tissue scaffolding ." Tissue scaffolds are nanostructures that provide a frame around which tissue, such as an organ or skin, can be grown. This could revolutionize the treatment of burn injuries and organ loss.

Nanomanufacturing  

Nanotech equipment

Scientists and engineers working at the nanometer-scale need special microscopes. The atomic force microscope ( AFM ) and the scanning tunneling microscope ( STM ) are essential in the study of nanotechnology. These powerful tools allow scientists and engineers to see and manipulate individual atoms.

AFMs use a very small probe —a cantilever with a tiny tip—to scan a nanostructure. The tip is only nanometers in diameter. As the tip is brought close to the sample being examined, the cantilever moves because of the atomic forces between the tip and the surface of the sample.

With STMs, an electronic signal is passed between the microscope’s tip—formed by one single atom—and the surface of the sample being scanned. The tip moves up and down to keep both the signal and the distance from the sample constant.

AFMs and STMs allow researchers to create an image of an individual atom or molecule that looks just like a topographic map . Using an AFM’s or STM’s sensitive tip, researchers can also pick up and move atoms and molecules like tiny building blocks.

Nanomanufacturing

There are two ways to build materials on the nanometer-scale: top-down or bottom-up.

Top-down nanomanufacturing involves carving bulk materials to create features with nanometer-scale dimensions. For decades, the process used to produce computer chips has been top-down. Producers work to increase the speed and efficiency of each "generation" of microchip . The manufacture of graphene-based (as opposed to silicon-based) microchips may revolutionize the industry.

Bottom-up nanomanufacturing builds products atom-by-atom or molecule-by-molecule. Experimenting with quantum dots and other nanomaterials, tech companies are starting to develop transistors and other electronic devices using individual molecules. These atom-thick transistors may mark the future development of the microchip industry.

History of Nanotechnology

U.S. physicist Richard Feynman is considered the father of nanotechnology. He introduced the ideas and concepts behind nanotech in a 1959 talk titled "There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom." Feynman did not use the term "nanotechnology," but described a process in which scientists would be able to manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules.

Modern nanotechnology truly began in 1981, when the scanning tunneling microscope allowed scientists and engineers to see and manipulate individual atoms. IBM scientists Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the scanning tunneling microscope. The Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center in Zurich, Switzerland, continues to build on the work of these pioneering scientists by conducting research and developing new applications for nanotechnology.

The iconic example of the development of nanotechnology was an effort led by Don Eigler at IBM to spell out "IBM" using 35 individual atoms of xenon.

By the end of the 20th century, many companies and governments were investing in nanotechnology. Major nanotech discoveries, such as carbon nanotubes, were made throughout the 1990s. By the early 2000s, nanomaterials were being used in consumer products from sports equipment to digital cameras.

Modern nanotechnology may be quite new, but nanometer-scale materials have been used for centuries. 

As early as the 4th century, Roman artists had discovered that adding gold and silver to glass created a startling effect: The glass appeared slate green when lit from the outside, but glowed red when lit from within. Nanoparticles of gold and silver were suspended in the glass solution, coloring it. The most famous surviving example of this technique is a ceremonial vessel , the Lycurgus Cup.

Artists from China, western Asia, and Europe were also using nanoparticles of silver and copper, this time in pottery glazes. This gave a distinctive luster to ceramics such as tiles and bowls.

In 2006, modern microscopy revealed the technology of Damascus steel , a metal used in South Asia and the Middle East until the technique was lost in the 18th century—carbon nanotubes. Swords made with Damascus steel are legendary for their strength, durability, and ability to maintain a very sharp edge.

One of the most well-known examples of premodern use of nanomaterials is in European medieval stained-glass windows. Like the Romans before them, medieval artisans knew that by putting varying, small amounts of gold and silver in glass, they could produce bright reds and yellows.

Nanotech and the Environment

Many governments, scientists, and engineers are researching the potential of nanotechnology to bring affordable, high-tech, and energy-efficient products to millions of people around the world. Nanotechnology has improved the design of products such as light bulbs, paints, computer screens, and fuels.

Nanotechnology is helping inform the development of alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind power. Solar cells, for instance, turn sunlight into electric currents . Nanotechnology could change the way solar cells are used, making them more efficient and affordable.

Solar cells, also called photovoltaic cells, are usually assembled as a series of large, flat panels. These solar panels are big and bulky. They are also expensive and often difficult to install. Using nanotechnology, scientists and engineers have been able to experiment with print-like development processes, which reduces manufacturing costs. Some experimental solar panels have been made in flexible rolls rather than rigid panels. In the future, panels might even be "painted" with photovoltaic technology.

The bulky, heavy blades on wind turbines may also benefit from nanotech. An epoxy containing carbon nanotubes is being used to make turbine blades that are longer, stronger, and lighter. Other nanotech innovations may include a coating to reduce ice buildup.

Nanotech is already helping increase the energy-efficiency of products. One of the United Kingdom's biggest bus operators, for instance, has been using a nano-fuel additive for close to a decade. Engineers mix a tiny amount of the additive with diesel fuel, and the cerium-oxide nanoparticles help the fuel burn more cleanly and efficiently. Use of the additive has achieved a 5 percent annual reduction in fuel consumption and emissions .

Access to clean water has become a problem in many parts of the world. Nanomaterials may be a tiny solution to this large problem.

Nanomaterials can strip water of toxic metals and organic molecules. For example, researchers have discovered that nanometer-scale specks of rust are magnetic, which can help remove dangerous chemicals from water. Other engineers are developing nanostructured filters that can remove viruses from water.

Researchers are also experimenting with using nanotechnology to safely, affordably, and efficiently turn saltwater into freshwater, a process called desalination . In one experiment, nano-sized electrodes are being used to reduce the cost and energy requirements of removing salts from water.

Oil Spill Clean-Up

Scientists and engineers are experimenting with nanotechnology to help isolate and remove oil spilled from offshore oil platforms and container ships.

One method uses nanoparticles' unique magnetic properties to help isolate oil. Oil itself is not magnetic, but when mixed with water-resistant iron nanoparticles, it can be magnetically separated from seawater. The nanoparticles can later be removed so the oil can be used.

Another method involves the use of a nanofabric "towel" woven from nanowires. These towels can absorb 20 times their weight in oil.

Nanotech and People

Hundreds of consumer products are already benefiting from nanotechnology. You may be wearing, eating, or breathing nanoparticles right now! 

Scientists and engineers are using nanotechnology to enhance clothing. By coating fabrics with a thin layer of zinc oxide nanoparticles, for instance, manufacturers can create clothes that give better protection from ultraviolet (UV) radiation , like that from the sun. Some clothes have nanoparticles in the form of little hairs or whiskers that help repel water and other materials, making fabric more stain-resistant.

Some researchers are experimenting with nanotechnology for "personal climate control." Nanofiber jackets allow the wearer to control the jacket’s warmth using a small set of batteries.

Many cosmetic products contain nanoparticles. Nanometer-scale materials in these products provide greater clarity , coverage, cleansing, or absorption. For instance, the nanoparticles used in sunscreen (titanium dioxide and zinc oxide) provide reliable, extensive protection from harmful UV radiation. These nanomaterials offer better light reflection for a longer time period.

Nanotechnology may also provide better "delivery systems" for cosmetic ingredients. Nanomaterials may be able to penetrate a skin’s cell membranes to augment the cell’s features, such as elasticity or moisture.

Nanotech is revolutionizing the sports world. Nanometer-scale additives can make sporting equipment lightweight, stiff, and durable.

Carbon nanotubes, for example, are used to make bicycle frames and tennis rackets lighter, thinner, and more resilient . Nanotubes give golf clubs and hockey sticks a more powerful and accurate drive.

Carbon nanotubes embedded in epoxy coatings make kayaks faster and more stable in the water. A similar epoxy keeps tennis balls bouncy.

The food industry is using nanomaterials in both the packaging and agricultural sectors. Clay nanocomposites provide an impenetrable barrier to gases such as oxygen or carbon dioxide in lightweight bottles, cartons, and packaging films. Silver nanoparticles, embedded in the plastic of storage containers, kill bacteria .

Engineers and chemists use nanotechnology to adapt the texture and flavor of foods. Nanomaterials’ greater surface area may improve the "spreadability" of foods such as mayonnaise, for instance. 

Nanotech engineers have isolated and studied the way our taste buds perceive flavor. By targeting individual cells on a taste bud, nanomaterials can enhance the sweetness or saltiness of a particular food. A chemical nicknamed "bitter blocker," for instance, can trick the tongue into not tasting the naturally bitter taste of many foods.

Electronics

Nanotechnology has revolutionized the realm of electronics. It provides faster and more portable systems that can manage and store larger and larger amounts of data.

Nanotech has improved display screens on electronic devices. This involves reducing power consumption while decreasing the weight and thickness of the screens.

Nanotechnology has allowed glass to be more consumer friendly. One glass uses nanomaterials to clean itself, for example. As ultraviolet light hits the glass, nanoparticles become energized and begin to break down and loosen organic molecules—dirt—on the glass. Rain cleanly washes the dirt away. Similar technology could be applied to touch-screen devices to resist sweat.

Nanomedicine

Nanotechnology can help medical tools and procedures be more personalized, portable, cheaper, safer, and easier to administer . Silver nanoparticles incorporated into bandages, for example, smother and kill harmful microbes . This can be especially useful in healing burns.

Nanotech is also furthering advances in disease treatments. Researchers are developing ways to use nanoparticles to deliver medications directly to specific cells. This is especially promising for the treatment of cancer, because chemotherapy and radiation treatments can damage healthy as well as diseased tissue.

Dendrimers, nanomaterials with multiple branches, may improve the speed and efficiency of drug delivery. Researchers have experimented with dendrimers that deliver drugs that slow the spread of cerebral palsy -like symptoms in rabbits, for example.

The list goes on. Fullerenes can be manipulated to have anti- inflammatory properties to slow or even stop allergic reactions. Nanomaterials may reduce bleeding and speed coagulation . Diagnostic testing and imaging can be improved by arranging nanoparticles to detect and attach themselves to specific proteins or diseased cells.

Grey Goo and Other Concerns

Unregulated pursuit of nanotechnology is controversial. In 1986, Eric Drexler wrote a book called Engines of Creation , which painted a vision of the future of nanotech, but also warned of the dangers. The book’s apocalyptic vision included self-replicating nanometer-scale robots that malfunctioned , duplicating themselves a trillion times over. These nano-bots rapidly consumed the entire world as they pulled carbon from the environment to replicate themselves.

Drexler’s vision is nicknamed the "grey goo" scenario. Many experts think concerns like "grey goo" are probably premature . Even so, many scientists and engineers continue to voice their concerns about nanotech’s future.

Nanopollution is the nickname given to the waste created by the manufacturing of nanomaterials. Some forms of nanopollution are toxic, and environmentalists are concerned about the bioaccumulation , or buildup, of these toxic nanomaterials in microbes, plants, and animals.

Nanotoxicology is the study of toxic nanoparticles, particularly their interaction with the human body. Nanotoxicology is an important research field, as nanomaterials can enter the body both intentionally and unintentionally. 

“Research is needed,” writes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “to determine whether exposure to manufactured nanomaterials can lead to adverse effects to the heart, lungs, skin; alter reproductive performance; or contribute to cancer.”

Another concern about nanotechnology is the price. Nanotech is an expensive area of research, and largely confined to developed nations with strong infrastructure . Many social scientists are concerned that underdeveloped countries will fall further behind as they cannot afford to develop a nanotechnology industry.

Investing in Nanotech

There are many ways of assessing investment in nanotechnology: government funding of research, venture capital funding of start-ups, or the number of new nanotech companies. These nations have made significant investment in nanotechnology.

• United States

Nano-Cartography

In 2010, researchers at IBM used nanotechnology to create a 3-D relief map of the world . . . 1/1000 the size of a grain of salt. Researchers used a sophisticated silicon tip in their microscope to carve into a glass substrate.

Nano-Graffiti

In 1989, IBM researchers spelled out their company’s logo using 35 xenon atoms. Twenty years later, researchers at Stanford University spelled out “SU” using subatomic particles. The letters were so small they could be used to print the 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica 2,000 times and the contents would fit on the head of a pin.

Nanoscale Perspective

• Your fingernails grow about one nanometer every second.
• When a seagull lands on an aircraft carrier, the carrier sinks about one nanometer.
• A man’s beard grows about a nanometer between the time he picks up a razor and lifts it to his face.

Nano-Soccer

Nanosoccer is an event where computer-driven “nanobots” the size of dust mites challenge one another on fields no bigger than a grain of rice. Often sponsored by government laboratories, nanosoccer teams from all over the world compete in events such as the “RoboCup.” See the rules and results of the 2009 nanosoccer tournament here .

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An Overview of the Impact of Nanotechnology on Economy and Business

• First Online: 13 December 2023

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• Sutirtha Bandyopadhyay 3 ,
• Hari Charan Dorbala 3 &
• Sudipta Mandal 3  

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Nanotechnology has become one of the pillars of modern scientific research. The evolution of nano-based products and nanomaterials in the past few years has immensely benefited the entire economy and society. Over the last two decades, we have observed a steady increase in the number of industries producing nano-based products and the number of countries promoting nanotechnology. This chapter highlights this commercialization aspect of nanoscience. We have found a continuous increase in the number of patents registered under nanotechnology worldwide between 2000 and 2020. More importantly, the ratio of nanotechnology to nominal GDP has increased significantly, suggesting that the contribution of nanotechnology to World GDP has increased. Nanotechnology has also played a key role in new job creation. This chapter also points out a few negative aspects of nanoscience from the socioeconomic perspective.

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Nominal GDP values are taken from the World Bank Data set: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2021&start=2001&view=chart

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Bandyopadhyay, S., Dorbala, H.C., Mandal, S. (2023). An Overview of the Impact of Nanotechnology on Economy and Business. In: Sarkar, B., Sonawane, A. (eds) Biological Applications of Nanoparticles. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3629-8_12

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12: Case Study on Nanotechnology

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Here we delve into a case study on nanotechnology which is an ancient technology as well as a cutting-edge modern technology. This contradiction is exactly why this is an interesting case study for learning what engineering (and science) is all about.

This section is meant to be accompanied with an inexpensive textbook. Fortunately wikibooks has such a textbook (free): The Opensource Handbook of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

This book is an excellent if a bit incomplete introduction (for an engineer or scientist) to nanotechnology. Some of the topics however might be overly advanced for an introduction to engineering class, so in this section nanotechnology will be reviewed with an assumption that the student will use the textbook above (or another one of their choice) to supplement. This section is not meant to take more than a week in an actually instructive setting.

What is naontechnology?

To begin with let us do another class discussion that asks the question: What is nanotechnology? Discuss before looking at some answers.

Carbon allotropes

Because "buckyballs" are the start of the modern revival of nanotechnology (at least from a media point of view) let us go over some of carbon allotropes that are making headlines.

While nanotechnology is an old technology, a new modern revival of the technology came about with discovery of C 60 or the Buckminsterfullerene (buckyball) named after Buckminster Fuller because of his penchant for building geodesic domes. Why geodesic domes? Because these domes are based off the Platonic solids 3 and C 60 is a truncated icosahedron (one of the Platonic solids).

C 60 were produced in 1985 during an experiment to help understand certain carbon molecules that might have been generated in space. Why do such an experiment? Because most stars have debris surrounding them with carbon in it and some have very long chains that are of interest to astronomers. Hence the experiment. The actual generation of C 60 was not intended but serendipity. From an engineering and science point of view, the analysis after the experiment was the real research because C 60 was identified through analysis after the experiment that did not aim to produce them or even know of their existence.

The buckyball is now considered a part of the fullerene family. An outline of facts about buckyballs:

• Truncated Icosahedron (like a Telstar football or "a soccer ball circa 1970s")
• 0.7 nm in diameter with a spacing of about 1 nm between adjacent buckyballs
• Can be made into a superconductor
• Offshoot studies led to the discovery of the carbon nanotube (next topic)
• Has been detected in burning candles (a modern addition to Faraday's The Chemical History of a Candle , yes?)
• Stacked buckyballs
• A huge amount, not miniscule
• The most massive particle to show wave-particle duality ( Nature 1999 )

There are many articles about buckyballs and interesting uses of buckyballs (though some are totally false, so be careful! See Understanding ). In this brief review though we will move onto the carbon nanotube as there have been actual products developed from this fullerene. That's not to say that buckyballs will never have products produced from them, there time just hasn't come yet.

Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes were first observed in 1991 and produced in 1992. Because of this discovery interest in buckyball technology shifted to these nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes are like an individual layer of graphite (which is now called graphene) that is wrapped around to meet end to end. An outline of facts about carbon nanotubes:

• Extremely strong
• Known as buckytubes at one time
• Science in making the sabers but serendipity that CNTs were involved (just like bread making, etc.)
• Modern techniques make better sabers, but at the time they were the best (and their legend lives on)
• Varying diameters from 1 nm to 100 nm and can in theory be as long as you desire, but in practice not so long (yet)
• Good conductor of electricity
• Or can be a semiconductor
• Called (carbon) nanowires when discussing electrical properties (note: this is not the only type of nanowire)
• Single-walled (SWCNT or SWNT) and multi-walled (MWCNT or MWNT)
• Buckypaper offers many possible applications, but still is in its infancy
• GSFC/NASA continues their groundbreaking work on carbon nanotube technology
• CNT has been tested for such diverse ideas such as water filtration, supercapacitors, heat shields, etc.

A great way to look at nanotubes is to get a piece of chicken wire (plastic preferably) and cut out a rectangle (at this point you have graphene) and wrap it around (nanotube). You can do this at home which is way better then a flat screen simulation and definitely inexpensive.

Different wraps of graphene can produce different properties for carbon nanotubes. That is, depending on how you wrap the nanotube you can have metallic nanotubes or semiconductor nanotubes (or at this point you might want to call it a nanowire). Note that the ends of the wrap which normally don't have a cap in our representations represents the end of the nanotube itself.

There are two other possible wraps for the carbon nanotube and that is the chiral wraps. Chiral CNTs are stereoisomers and are mostly semiconductors.

For carbon nanotubes we can define a coordinate system that has unit vectors that help us describe the armchair, zig-zag, and chiral nanotubes.

Using the unit vectors (\(\vec{e_1}\) and \(\vec{e_2}\)) defined in the figure above we can write an equation that describes the various nanotubes as \(m \vec{e_1} + n \vec{e_2}\) where m and n are integers and \(m+n \ge 2\). Given this equation if m or n equal zero then we have a zig-zag CNT (semiconductor), if m=n we have an armchair CNT (metallic), and otherwise it is chiral CNT. In general chiral CNTs are semiconductors but if \(\lvert (m-n)\rvert \) is a multiple of 3 then it is metallic 4 .

Fullerene research is just at its infancy and there will be more to discover which will include its share of disappointments, but that is science.

So what about that sheet of graphite we discussed above? A single sheet of graphite is called graphene. Through studies of the laminar nature of graphite oxide starting as early as the 1860s where chemist Benjamin Brodie produced thin layers of the crystal which he studied and was able to get atomic weight of graphite. Studies on this structure continued with every thinner layers which had high strength and noteworthy optical properties. In 1947, physicist's P. R. Wallace produced a theoretical framework for graphene in order to understand the electronic properties of graphite. Work continued on thin layers of graphite both experimentally and theoretically with some work possibly being on graphene (there would be no way to distinguish between one and a few layers of graphite). In 1961 chemist Hanns-Peter Boehm reported on very thin layers of graphite flacks and called a single layer of graphite, "graphene." The term would be revived in the late 1990s when disscussing carbon nanotubes. Finally in 2004, physicists' Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolated and characterized free-standing graphene. And this is when things got interesting...

In the following outline we will list some properties of graphene that can possibly lead to exciting new products or are just very interesting scientifically:

• Single atom thickness (carbon)
• Normally a semiconductor has a greater than zero band gap and it is metals you would expect to have no band gap
• That is the graphene actual absorbs light (over 2%)
• This feature mean you can actual "see" graphene in certain conditions
• Graphene's strong interaction with photons maybe useable for nanophotonics
• Graphene is theoretically an excellent material for spintronics due to carbon coupling and long spin lifetimes (theory)
• Lightest strongest material with large tensile strength
• Small spring constant (flexible)
• Very robust
• But it has a impressive ability to distribute the force of an impact
• This allows it to bend like metals
• Graphene has high surface area to mass ratio (almost goes without saying) which could make it good for supercapacitors (instead of the currently favored idea of activated carbon)
• Can by used for energy storage, filtration, and other applications

That was just a few of the interesting properties of graphene. But this is not the last word on nanotechology as up and coming new technology includes the hexogonal Boron Nitrite (h-BN) that has just as many interesting properties as graphene. And we can go even further with combining fullerenes, graphene, and h-BN. Already combining graphene with CNTs has produced interesting research avenues as well as graphene with bismuth nanowires and graphene with h-BN (hexagonal Boron Nitrite).

So let us move on to discussing nanotechnology in more general way to give just a brief overview.

Nanotechnology by discipline

Nanotechnology spans multiple engineering disciplines which we will list briefly below. For electrical engineering the processes of making integrated circuits (ICs) has been in the nanotechnology range for decades, but new techniques are possible with nanotechnology elements.

• Bionanosensors
• Utilizing natures nanotechnology (like mRNA for vaccines, etc.)
• Nanofoods (nano-manipulation of food to improve taste, texture, etc.)
• Nanopackaging (using nanomaterials to improve packaging)
• Nanomembranes (for filtering)
• Nanocatalysts (for water remediation)
• Nanocoating (including CNT coating)
• Nanosurface protection (including uses of CNT mechanical properties)
• Quantum dots
• Lithography (been at nano-level for a long time)
• DNA nanoarray
• Nanowires or nanosemiconductors
• Nano-optics

The outline above is just a taste of nanotechology and how it effects a number of engineering disciplines.

There are three different areas of research in nanotechnology which usually are the domain of different disciplines.

• Liquid environment
• Usually biological
• Filters (CNT) and example of cross-over technology
• Silicon and other inorganic materials
• Metals, semiconductors
• Too reactive so they can't operate in wet conditions
• This should be in addition to actual experimentation and prototyping
• While this is important and could produce some excellent product or insight, it still has to be verified experimentally
• So don't get excited until the process is complete
• This is required to fully understand nanotechnology

What is so exciting about Nanotechnology?

The physical rules of the "macro" world are relevant all they way down to the microscopic level, but things change when you pass into the nano realm. Surface effects, chemical effects, optical effects, and physical effects are different in the nanoscale when compared to the macro or micro scale.

• Stain resistant clothes
• Sweat absorbing clothes
• Antimicrobial socks
• New exciting discoveries await
• However, disappointments await as well
• This is the nature of research
• Is some money going to be wasted? Yes that is the nature of searching for things. "Failure" is an integral part of engineering and science. We want success but we want to progress as well and that means some failures
• Can we predict where our money should go? Yes and no. Simulations can give us clues, but it is not a perfect solution
• Should we only do research that is proven out by a simulation? No, but we should not ignore the contribution of simulation

Understanding the different effects at the nanolevel requires an understanding of physics. For engineers and scientists this is why physics is essential. Some ideas require a graduate level physics background, but even with a calculus-based physics understanding the ideas behind nanotechnology become clearer. Simulations are going to require graduate school level education.

• Scaling laws
• Transport phenomena
• Hartree-Fock (computational physics - approximation method for wave functions)
• Hydrophobic and hydrophilic
• Diffusion, transport in all dimensions

Practical ways to do Nanotechnology

How do you go about making something in nanotechnology? There are two methods

• Building nanotechnology using larger elements
• Primary method in manufacturing at present
• No atomic-level control
• ​​​​​​State of photolithography for a couple of decade
• Laser is a larger element producing smaller nano-element
• Build from molecular components
• Static self-assembly utilizes nature to reach minimum free energy
• Dynamic self-assembly requires energy to force a solution
• That is components assemble themselves based off of a code
• What in nature might be used as a model for this?
• What are some problematic issues with using this method?

The answer to our coding is DNA which we discussed at the start of this chapter.

DNA is a coding device that is used in nature, but some have proven it can be used by humans. DNA is nanometer in size. Let us view a TED Talk by Paul Rothemund explaining his creation of DNA faces.

Note that the method described here is not the only method people are researching. You can go to the Rothemund Lab web page (under research) to get links to other researchers in the field.

Nanotechnology Examples

Because nanotechnology is so vast and covers so many disciplines we have picked only a few examples as a way of introduction. There are many many many more applications and examples in the literature. We encourage you to read as many as you can. And maybe one of your essays can be on nanotechnology in your field!

Bismuth Nanowires

Bismuth in has been used in one form or another for thermocouples and thermopiles for more than a century. Bismuth is a semimetal even in nanowire form until about 50 nm when it transitions to a semiconductor form. Most research is done, however, with Bismuth nanowires in the semimetal form as it is difficult to produce good nanowires below 50 nm (though advances continue). Nanowires offer different properties that can aid in the thermocouple/thermopile are of research such as optical properties and reduction of thermal conductivity (bulk semimetal general dissipate energy to quickly due to higher thermal conductivity.

Nanotechnology and the environment

• Humans need clean consumable water for survival
• Environmental contaminates are a serious problem that reduces the amount of consumable water to unacceptable levels
• Ultrafiltration
• Added reactive component (iron oxide ceramic membranes) add an extra-level of removal of contaminates
• Aluminum oxide ceramic membranes are another membrane being investigated
• Iron oxidization causes certain organic molecules (including toxic ones) to break down
• Therefore nanoscale iron can improve remediation
• Smaller size allows the iron to go further into the soil (percolation)

Nanotechnology materials

• The grain size is an important characterization of metal (regardless if we are taking nanotechnology or not) that defines among other things the yield strength
• \(\sigma_y = \sigma_0 + \frac{k}{\sqrt{d}}\) where \(\sigma_y\) is the yield strength, \(\sigma_0\) and k are constants that depend on the particular metal, and d is the average grain size diameter
• The equation implies that smaller grain sizes give better yield strength
• Possible negative Hall-Petch effect below 30 nm
• Questions remain; studies needed
• Issues are worsening corrosion and creep as the grain size gets smaller
• Future shows promise however
• Ceramic nanoparticles
• Possible bone repair (see next example)

Nanotechnology and bones

A large portion of our bones are nanosize hydroxyapatite which could be repairable using bioactive and resorbable ceramics. The mechanism of this repair would be osteoinduction. This is a very promising research avenue.

Spintronics (or magnetoelectronics)

The idea behind spintronics is to develop electronics that uses the spin of the electron rather than the "movement" of the electrons. The promise of this technology is to make transistors smaller and faster.

• Technically spintronics is not nanotechnology, however, nanotechnology offers the best approach for its practical use
• By creating ferromagnetic semiconductors that require layers that are only a few nanometers (\(\leftarrow\) there you go)

Nanotechnology Machines

Can there be nanotechnology machines? No, not really, nanomachines are not very practical. But nanoparts for use by microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is possible. For nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) we will outline some possible parts without getting into the details of how to control the motion (some sort of voltage will need to be applied).

• Use multi-walled nanotubes
• One tube rotates inside the other
• Kinds of emulates rotational bearings
• The nanomotor would be controlled by the use of a nanocrystal ram (sort of like a piston)
• Control by voltage in some fashion
• In general electronics this can be used as a clock or for blinking lights on a car
• This works using liquid metal droplets that exchange mass
• Utilizes surface tension (which in would be very strong at this scale)
• Graphene has relatively small spring constant and therefore is relatively flexible
• Graphene is very robust as well

Tools used in nanotechnology

A microscope is an optical device that uses light to magnify the object it is viewing, because visible light has a wavelength between 400 nm to 800 nm. Typically a "microscope" can at best see an object about twice the wavelength of light that is used. This means a normal optical microscope could at best see about 1 \(\mu m\) which is in its name...a micro scope. This would be cellular level. It is possible to infer some nanotechnology from a powerful microscope, but it would be better to use something else. Also there are UV microscopes, but still it would be better to use something else. So in this section we will go over the tools for nanotechnology.

• Focused beam of electrons
• Electrons' wavelength is much smaller than 1 nm (so this will work for nanotechnology)
• 5 to 10 nm resolution; some special SEMs can get down to just less than 1 nm
• Surface scanner
• Electrons penetrate the sample (typically less the 1 \(\mu m\))
• Magnets used to manipulate the electrons into the sample
• 0.2 nm resolution (but field of view is severely reduced in exchange for this better resolution)
• SEM, TEM with equipment like spectrometers
• 0.1 nm resolution
• While there are versions that can be used in a liquid environment, these Liquid-phase EMs have limited uses
• Need to prepare certain samples by sputtering metal (like gold) on them
• Sample is placed in a vacuum of at least 10 -4 torr
• New innovations allow for "desktop" Scanning electron microsopes
• Used electrical properties from tip to sample
• 0.01 nm depth resolution
• Uses force properties (this is how it distinguishes from STM) using a cantilever
• Detects the Van der Waals forces by oscillating very close to the surface
• Difficult mode to work because of its being close to the surface which induces troublesome forces
• Most common mode
• For soft surfaces
• There are many different type of probes (maybe 100 or so)
• Nanoscale Thermal Analysis probes for thermal maps of the sample
• Scanning Microwave Impedance Microscopy probe for scanning local electrical properties
• Magnetic probes for probing magnetic fields above the sample
• Scanning Capacitance Mode probes for getting a sense of carrier concentrations in semiconductors
• Deep Trench probe used for the integrated circuit industry
• Tip Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy probe
• Millimeters for Electron Microscopes
• Micrometers for Scanning Probe Microscopes
• Slow scan compared to SEM
• Unless you really want to get to the atomic level then you need high vacuum
• In the case of atomic level however we are not discussing nanotechnology any more though this could be of benefit to nanotechnology in the research sense
• Tapping mode is usually used here
• Usually use same sort of probes as with solid but designed for liquid (Silver Nitride)
• Probes for AFMs can be used to do nanomanipulation (nanolithography or nanobuilding)
• Nanomanpulators are available for SEMs as well
• Only two types will be outlined here, more are covered in materials class
• Spectroscopy is the study of how light interacts with materials
• Basic spectrometers that most people are familiar with determine elements in a system but other spectrometers determine much more
• Studying spectrometers could actual be a year-long course in itself, fortunately there are numerous web sites on spectroscopy for most types of spectrometers
• Determines type of crystal structure along with defects and any other structural information
• Some methods are non-destructive
• "Common" spectroscopy in general determines if you have say carbon or not but not what form of carbon
• Allotropes of carbon: buckyball, CNTs, graphite, diamond, graphene, glassy carbon, carbon nanobuds, etc.
• Basis of this spectroscopy is Stokes Raman scattering (as opposed to say Mie or Rayleigh scattering)
• This is covered more thoroughly in the materials science course
• New advances have been produced in the lab (real) because of simulation that were originally preformed based off new theories or ideas
• Theories are made into models which are then simulated
• Need models of measuring tools and the materials to understand interactions
• Theory: what do we know about the materials and tools
• Model: represent the theory in a testable fashion (equations; numerical analysis techniques)
• Use the model to predict some new results
• Laboratory test for the new results to confirm the model
• Re-work the model
• In rare instances look at the theory

Nanotechnology involves almost everything

• Nanoparticles (like quantum dots)
• Light and its interaction at a nanoscale
• Metamaterials (negative index of refraction among other "non-natural" properties) are the most promising here
• Nanomechanics
• Nanofluidics (study of fluids confined to a nanostructure)
• Nanobiotechnology

Additional websites to satiate your curiosity on nanotechnology

• https://www.nano.gov
• https://www.nature.com/nnano/ - Nature Magazine's Nanotechnology Journal
• https://www.ornl.gov/facility/cnms
• https://nanohub.org - this is for educators and researchers can be very high level
• https://nanocenter.umd.edu
• https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/microscope-resource/primer/java/electronmicroscopy/magnify1/ - simulation of an electron microscope
• https://www.renishaw.com/en/raman-spectroscopy--6150 - Renishaw's Raman Spectroscopy page (they have links to a lot of literature on Raman spectroscopy)
• http://mw.concord.org/modeler/ - Molecular Workbench: Simulator program for learning science in a realistic manner
• https://www.sciencenews.org - General science periodical but you can search for Nanotechnology and get interesting articles
• https://www.nanowerk.com - kinda like a warehouse of nanotechnology links (more for learning)
• https://www.graphene-info.com - kinda like a warehouse of graphene articles and links
• https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/nanotechnology/ - National Geographic article on Nanotechnology
• https://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm
• https://www.agilent.com/labs/features/2011_101_nano.html
• https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/programs/nano/default.html - CDC laboratory that investigates the safety of nanotechnology
• https://www.open-raman.org - open source Raman project so you can build your won Raman spectrometer (costs a bit, still)
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6982820/  - An article on this history of nanotechnology that might be of interest to some

This is just a sampling of nanotechnology, a more detail look at nanotechnology will be provide in materials science class. This is the last teacher-led case study; now it is the students turn - starting in the next section.

1 For a more modern version of the Powers of Ten you might want to look at the Cosmic Eye version:

Another interesting approach is the tool on AAAS' ScienceNetlink that gives more scales then just the power of 10 movie: Scale of Universe 2 . Still the original movie from 1977 is still amazingly good and has music from the famous American composer, Elmer Bernstein ( The Ten Commandments, Magnificent Seven ,...).

2 The tendency is to use grain size here but that actually means something else with regards to metallurgy so instead we will say nanoparticle size. Gold is obviously gold when we look at it, but a 30 nm nanoparticle size of gold is red. As you make larger and large nanoparticles it starts to change from red to a bluish-purple hue. The shape also can cause color change so rather than grinding it like you would in ancient times you would purposely make spheres or prismoids to get different colors (note that the sphere would be different color then prismoid if both were the same size).

3 The Platonic solids were described by Plato (or, maybe, Pythagoras) and consist of five solids: the cube, tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron, and dodecahedron. These solids are very interesting in the field of mathematics and crystallography (and by association materials science).

4 You can examine this more by using one of Scott Sinex's Material Sciences Excelets (in particular one named "Carbon Nanotube"). This, while designed for Excel, will run on LibreOffice's spreadsheet but does not work on MacOS Numbers.

5 The example list of probes herein is from Bruker , a company that sells scientific equipment, in particular AFM and STM probes ( Bruker probes division).

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Nanotechnology

by Chris Woodford . Last updated: September 15, 2023.

I magine if you climbed out of the shower only to discover you'd shrunk in the wash by about 1500 million times! If you stepped into your living room, what you'd see around you would not be chairs, tables, computers , and your family but atoms , molecules, proteins, and cells. Shrunk down to the "nanoscale," you'd not only see the atoms that everything is made from—you'd actually be able to move them around! Now suppose you started sticking those atoms together in interesting new ways, like tiny LEGO® bricks of nature. You could build all kinds of fantastic materials, everything from brand new medicines to ultra-fast computer chips . Making new things on this incredibly small scale is called nanotechnology and it's one of the most exciting and fast-moving areas of science and technology today.

Photo: A model of a photonic crystal, which switches light on and off roughly like a silicon chip controls electricity. In the future, nanotechnological devices like this could be used to make fast, optical (light-based) computers. Photo by Ames Laboratory and US Department of Energy published on Flickr (public domain) .

How big is "nano"?

Artwork: A very tall (2m) person would be 2 billion (2000 million) nanometers from head to toe!

We live on a scale of meters and kilometers (thousands of meters), so it's quite hard for us to imagine a world that's too small to see. You've probably looked at amazing photos in science books of things like dust mites and flies photographed with electron microscopes . These powerful scientific instruments make images that are microscopic , which means on a scale millionths of a meter wide. Nanoscopic involves shrinking things down to a whole new level. Nano means "billionth", so a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. In other words, the nanoscale is 1000 times smaller than the microscopic scale and a billion (1000 million) times smaller than the world of meters that we live in .

From nanoscience to nanotechnology

This is all very interesting and quite impressive, but what use is it? Our lives have some meaning on a scale of meters, but it's impossible to think about ordinary, everyday existence on a scale 1000 times smaller than a fly's eye. We can't really think about problems like AIDS, world poverty, or global warming , because they lose all meaning on the nanoscale. Yet the nanoscale—the world where atoms, molecules (atoms joined together), proteins, and cells rule the roost—is a place where science and technology gain an entirely new meaning.

Photo: Nanotechnology could help us fuse computers and brains together, using artificial synapses (brain-cell connections) like this prototype, developed by the NIST. Photo courtesy of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) , U.S. Department of Commerce.

By zooming in to the nanoscale, we can figure out how some of the puzzling things in our world actually work by seeing how atoms and molecules make them happen. You've probably seen that trick TV programs do with satellite photos, where they start off with a picture of the green and blue Earth and zoom in really fast, at ever-increasing scale, until you're suddenly staring at someone's back garden. You realize Earth is green because it's made from a patchwork of green grass. Keep zooming in and you'll see the chloroplasts in the grass: the green capsules inside the plant cells that make energy from sunlight. Zoom in some more and you'll eventually see molecules made from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen being split apart and recombined inside the chloroplasts. So the nanoscale is good because it lets us do nanoscience : it helps us understand why things happen by studying them at the smallest possible scale. Once we understand nanoscience, we can do some nanotechnology: we can put the science into action to help solve our problems. That's what the word "technology" means and it's how technology (applied science) differs from pure science, which is about studying things for their own sake.

The Nanoscale

Ordinary objects are absolutely huge measured on what scientists call the nanoscale:

• Atom: ~0.1 nanometers.
• Atoms in a molecule: ~0.15 nanometers apart.
• DNA double-helix: ~2 nanometers in diameter.
• Typical protein: ~10 nanometers long.
• Computer transistor (switch): ~100-200 nanometers wide.
• Typical bacteria: ~200 nanometers long.
• Human hair: 50,000–100,000 nanometers in diameter.
• One piece of paper : ~100,000 nanometers thick.
• Girl 1.2 m (4ft) tall: ~1200 million nanometers tall.
• Man 2m (6.5 ft) tall ~ 2000 million nanometers tall.
• Empire State Building: 381m (1250 ft) tall: ~381,000 million nanometers tall.

Can you figure out how tall you are in nanometers?

What's so good about the nanoscale?

It turns out there are some very interesting things about the nanoscale. Lots of substances behave very differently in the world of atoms and molecules. For example, the metal copper is transparent on the nanoscale while gold, which is normally unreactive, becomes chemically very active. Carbon, which is quite soft in its normally occurring form (graphite), becomes incredibly hard when it's tightly packed into a nanoscopic arrangement called a nanotube . In other words, materials can have different physical properties on the nanoscale even though they're still the same materials! On the nanoscale, it's easier for atoms and molecules to move around and between one another, so the chemical properties of materials can also be different. Nanoparticles have much more surface area exposed to other nanoparticles, so they are very good as catalysts (substances that speed up chemical reactions).

Photo: Nanoparticles like these platinum lace nanoballs make very effective catalysts because they're so tiny. As the scale shows, they're about 500 nanometers across—twice the size of typical bacteria. Photo courtesy of US Department of Energy (Flickr) .

One reason for these differences is that different factors become important on the nanoscale. In our everyday world, gravity is the most important force we encounter: it dominates everything around us, from the way our hair hangs down around our head to the way Earth has different seasons at different times of year. But on the nanoscale, gravity is much less important than the electromagnetic forces between atoms and molecules. Factors like thermal vibrations (the way atoms and molecules store heat by jiggling about) also become extremely significant. In short, the game of science has different rules when you play it on the nanoscale.

How do you work on the nanoscale?

Your fingers are millions of nanometers long, so it's no good trying to pick up atoms and molecules and move them around with your bare hands. That would be like trying to eat your dinner with a fork 300 km (186 miles) long! Amazingly, scientists have developed electron microscopes that allow us to "see" things on the nanoscale and also manipulate them. They're called atomic force microscopes (AFMs), scanning probe microscopes (SPMs), and scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs).

Photo: The eight tiny probe tips on the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) built into NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. The tip enlarged in the circle is the same size as a smoke particle at its base (2 microns). Photo by courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Neuchatel .

The basic idea of an electron microscope is to use a beam of electrons to see things that are too small to see using a beam of light. A nanoscopic microscope uses electronic and quantum effects to see things that are even smaller. It also has a tiny probe on it that can be used to shift atoms and molecules around and rearrange them like tiny building blocks. In 1989, IBM researcher Don Eigler used a microscope like this to spell out the word I-B-M by moving individual atoms into position. Other scientists have used similar techniques to draw pictures of nanoscopic guitars, books, and all kinds of other things. These are mostly frivolous exercises, designed to wow people with nanopower. But they also have important practical applications. There are lots of other ways of working with nanotechnology, including molecular beam epitaxy , which is a way of growing single crystals one layer of atoms at a time.

Photo: Zooming in on the nanoscale: IBM scientists have measured the charges on individual atoms using an atomic force microscope, an extremely powerful microscope that works down to nanoscale dimensions (more about this in a moment). By courtesy of IBM Research–Zurich published on Flickr in 2018 under a Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-ND 2.0) .

What can we use nanotechnology for?

Most of nanotechnology's benefits will happen decades in the future, but it's already helping to improve our world in many different ways. We tend to think of nanotechnology as something new and alien, perhaps because the word "technology" implies artificial and human-made, but life itself is an example of nanotechnology: proteins, bacteria, viruses, and cells all work on the nanoscopic scale.

Nanomaterials

It could be you're already using nanotechnology. You might be wearing nanotechnology pants (that's "trousers" to you in the UK), walking on a nanotechnology rug, sleeping on nanotechnology sheets, or hauling nanotechnology luggage to the airport. All these products are made from fabrics coated with "nanowhiskers." These tiny surface fibers are so small that dirt cannot penetrate into them, which means the deeper layers of material stay clean. Some brands of sunscreens use nanotechnology in a similar way: they coat your skin with a layer of nanoscopic titanium dioxide or zinc oxide that blocks out the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. Nano-coatings are also appearing on scratch-resistant car bumpers, anti-slip steps on vans and buses, corrosion resistant paints, and wound dressings.

Photo: Nanomaterials being designed on a computer screen at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The materials shown here are built from precise arrangements of nanoclusters, which are groups of just 10 to 100 atoms. Photo courtesy of US Department of Energy (Flickr) .

Carbon nanotubes are among the most exciting of nanomaterials. These rod-shaped carbon molecules are roughly one nanometer across. Although they're hollow, their densely packed structure makes them incredibly strong and they can be grown into fibers of virtually any length. NASA scientists have recently proposed carbon nanotubes could be used to make a gigantic elevator stretching all the way from Earth into space. Equipment and people could be shuttled slowly up and down this "carbon ladder to the stars," saving the need for expensive rocket flights.

Artwork: A typical carbon nanotube is about ten atoms across and 50,000 times thinner than an average human hair.

One form of nanotechnology we all use is microelectronics . The "micro" part of that word suggests computer chips work on the microscopic scale—and they do. But since terms like "microchip" were coined in the 1970s, electronic engineers have found ways of packing even more transistor switches into integrated circuits to make computers that are smaller, faster, and cheaper than ever before. This constant increase in computing power goes by the name of Moore's Law , and nanotechnology will ensure it continues well into the future. Everyday transistors in the early 21st-century are just 100–200 nanometers wide, but cutting-edge experiments are already developing much smaller devices. In 1998, scientists made a transistor from a single carbon nanotube.

Photo: Making an electric circuit with carbon nanotubes. A carbon nanotube (shown here in light blue at the top) is connected to an electricity supply using aluminum (shown in dark blue at the bottom). Picture by courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC) .

And it's not just the chips inside computers that use nanotechnology. The displays on everything from iPods and cellphones to laptops and flatscreen TVs are shifting to organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) , made from plastic films built on the nanoscale.

Nanomachines

One of the most exciting areas of nanotechnology is the possibility of building incredibly small machines —things like gears , switches, pumps , or engines —from individual atoms. Nanomachines could be made into nanorobots (sometimes called nanobots ) that could be injected into our bodies to carry out repairs or sent into hazardous or dangerous environments, perhaps to clean up disused nuclear power plants. As is so often the case, nature leads humans here. Scientists have already found numerous examples of nanomachines in the natural world. For example, a common bacteria called E.coli can build itself a little nanotechnology tail that it whips around like a kind of propeller to move it closer to food. Making nanomachines is also known as molecular manufacturing and molecular nanotechnology (MNT).

How do you make a nanomachine?

Photo: The world's smallest chain drive. An example of a nanomachine, this nanotechnology "bike chain" and gear system was developed by scientists at Sandia National Laboratories. The distance between each link of the chain is fractionally smaller than the width of a typical human hair. Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories .

Artwork: A simple "nano-escalator." It works by making one molecule (green) move up and down another one (blue and red).

History of nanotechnology

“ Why not write the entire 24 volumes of the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' on the head of a pin?” Richard Feynman, Popular Science , Oct 1960

Natural examples like this tell us that nanotechnology is as old as life itself, but the concept of the nanoscale, nanoscience we can study, and nanotechnology we can harness are all relatively new developments. The brilliant American physicist Richard Feynman (1918–1988) is widely credited with kick-starting modern interest in nanotechnology. In 1959, in a famous after-dinner speech called "There's plenty of room at the bottom," the ever-imaginative Feynman speculated about an incredibly tiny world where people could use tiny tools to rearrange atoms and molecules. By 1974, Japanese engineering professor Norio Taniguchi had named this field "nanotechnology."

Photo: Creatures of the nanoworld? This is what a single molecule of the semiconductor material cadmium sulfide looks like. Nanoparticles like this could be used to make improved electronic displays and lasers. Picture by courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC) .

Nanotechnology really took off in the 1980s. That was when nanotech-evangelist Dr K. Eric Drexler first published his groundbreaking book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology . It was also the decade when microscopes appeared that were capable of manipulating atoms and molecules on the nanoscale. In 1991, carbon nanotubes were discovered by another Japanese scientist, Sumio Iijima, opening up huge interest in new engineering applications. The graphite in pencils is a soft form of carbon. In 1998, some American scientists built themselves another kind of pencil from a carbon nanotube and then used it, under a microscope, to write the words "NANOTUBE NANOPENCIL" with letters only 10 nanometers across.

Stunts like this captured the public imagination, but they also led to nanotechnology being recognized and taken seriously at the highest political levels. In 2000, President Bill Clinton sealed the importance of nanotechnology when he launched a major US government program called the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) , designed to fund groundbreaking research and inspire public interest. By 2016, the US government was investing over $1 billion a year in nanotechnology through the NNI alone. Nanotechnology reached another important milestone that year with the award of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, and Bernard Feringa, three scientists whose groundbreaking work had spawned the idea of turning molecules into machines.

The future of nanotechnology: nanodream or nano-nightmare?

Engineers the world over are raving about nanotechnology. This is what scientists at one of America's premier research institutions, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, have to say: "The new concepts of nanotechnology are so broad and pervasive, that they will influence every area of technology and science, in ways that are surely unpredictable.... The total societal impact of nanotechnology is expected to be greater than the combined influences that the silicon integrated circuit , medical imaging, computer-aided engineering, and man-made polymers have had in this century." That's a pretty amazing claim: 21st-century nanotechnology will be more important than all the greatest technologies of the 20th century put together!

Photo: These nanogears were made by attaching benzene molecules (outer white blobs) to the outsides of carbon nanotubes (inner gray rings). Image by NASA Ames Research Center courtesy of Internet Archive .

Nanotechnology sounds like a world of great promise, but there are controversial issues too that must be considered and resolved. Some people have raised concerns that nanoscale organisms or machines could harm human life or the environment. One problem is that tiny particles can be extremely toxic to the human body. No-one really knows what harmful effect new nanomaterials or substances could have. Chemical pesticides were not considered harmful when they were first used in the early decades of the 20th century; it wasn't until the 1960s and 1970s that their potentially harmful effects were properly understood. Could the same happen with nanotechnology?

The ultimate nano-nightmare, the problem of "gray goo," was first highlighted by Eric Drexler. What happens if well-meaning humans create nanobots that run riot through the biosphere, gobbling up all living things and leaving behind nothing but a chewed-up mass of "gray goo"? Drexler later backed away from that claim. But critics of nanotechnology still argue humans shouldn't meddle with worlds they don't understand, but if we took that argument to its logical conclusion, we'd have no inventions at all—no medicines, no transportation, no agriculture, and no education—and we'd still be living in the Stone Age. The real question is whether the promise of nanotechnology is greater than any potential risks that go with it. And that will determine whether our nano-future becomes dream—or nightmare.

If you liked this article...

Find out more, on this website.

• Electron microscopes

For older readers

For younger readers.

• Nanooze! : A brilliant children's nanotechnology website.
• Nanotechnology photos : Are you looking for photos you to illustrate a school or college project? The Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at Argonne National Laboratory publishes some excellent pictures of nanotechnology research under a Creative Commons Licence, allowing you to use them freely providing you give appropriate credit.
• The US National Nanotechnology Initiative : A website covering all aspects of the US government program to encourage research and development into nanotechnology. It has a long and very useful list of nanotechnology research centers in the United States.
• National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network : A program linking different organizations and institutions working on nanotechnology research.

Text copyright © Chris Woodford 2007, 2020. All rights reserved. Full copyright notice and terms of use .

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The Applications and Implications of Nanotechnology

You are here: american university school of international service centers security, innovation, and new technology the applications and implications of nanotechnology.

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Security, Technology, Innovation

Last month, the FBI announced charges against two Chinese military officers for infiltrating into the U.S. under false identities to steal U.S. intellectual property. Interestingly, in this instance their target was not proprietary information or U.S. military plans; instead, the spies hoped to glean insight into Harvard’s basic research in the field of nanoscience. This incident highlights that winning the future requires more than just the technologies du jour like AI and hypersonics; even more valuable is the foundational science that underpins these technologies. Unfortunately, nanotechnology and other basic sciences are often excluded from the conversation on emerging technologies.  

This article provides an overview of nanotechnology, its applications, and its implications for national security. It then outlines general policy recommendations to mitigate the threats posed by nanotechnology.

Nanotech as an Emerging Technology

Nanoscience is a subfield of physics dealing with measuring 1-100 nanometers. These are extraordinarily small particles: a printed version of this essay would be about 100,000 nanometers thick. Greater understanding of this subfield has led to the advent of nanotechnology - engineering processes and tools that allow the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules. Nanotechnology allows humans to play with the building blocks of the universe, exploiting the laws of quantum mechanics to construct materials with unimaginable precision - literally molecule by molecule. Nanotechnology has the potential for revolutionary advancements in fields from metallurgy and medicine to military power.

Advances in nanotechnology are deeply intertwined with other technologies, many of which have received far greater attention. Nanotechnology will have applications for other technologies like gene-editing, additive manufacturing (3-D printing), artificial intelligence, spacecraft, and quantum computing. However, nanotechnology’s unique properties and processes merit greater attention from the policy community. Narrow policies that treat nano-applications on an ad-hoc basis will not address the unique characteristics and challenges of nanotechnology itself. As one expert has observed , “Nanoparticles are far more reactive and unpredictable than normal chemical/biological particles, but countries do not appreciate this...regulations that offer any meaningful guidance...do not always recognize nanotechnology as a new field with unique challenges.”

The bottom line is that nanotechnology will not only accelerate existing threats, it will create novel and more complex threats. Greater understanding of nanotech, both within government and among the general public, is necessary to spur a more proactive policy framework.

Applications: Biochem, Bots, Bytes

Because most important biological processes occur at the nanoscale, nanotechnology will improve - and perhaps revolutionize - chemical/biological (CB) weapons capabilities. Nanotechnology will make CB agents easier to produce and transport. Far smaller amounts of the agents would need to be made, and this would require only small, low-level facilities, making detection more difficult . This will greatly hinder counter-proliferation and counter-WMD operations, as it will be increasingly difficult to detect and disrupt the creation or transfer of nano-enabled agents, whether by terrorist organizations or state actors. Moreover, identification and attribution of nanoparticles poses unique difficulties , which would hinder response to an attack.

The convergence of nanotechnology, synthetic biology (i.e gene-editing), and chemistry will allow the creation of novel agents and enhance the resilience and lethality of existing agents. It will be possible to edit bacterial DNA to create entirely new organisms, or to build new chemicals from the ground up. NT could also enhance the toxicity of inorganic chemicals, because the large surface area of nanoparticles makes them especially toxic. Finally, nanotechnology will enable new delivery systems and methods to avoid medical countermeasures. For example, nanotubes could be used to deliver only the lethal parts of the anthrax virus- without the signature protein that is recognizable to the immune system. Just as concerning, nanotechnology will improve processes of encapsulation and aeresolization of lethal organisms . As one report summarized it , nano-chem-bio applications will “go beyond the weaponisation of pathogens or toxic substances, such as the creation of ineffective vaccines…enhancement of the virulence and pathogenicity of micro-organisms, augmentation of macro-organisms vulnerability to infectious diseases; and creation of diagnostic impediments.”

Nanotechnology will have applications beyond chemical/biological weapons to include the domains of cyber, robotics, and additive manufacturing. First, nanotech will lead to rapid improvements in quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Second, the ability to manipulate matter at the near-atomic level will yield highly precise and efficient manufacturing processes. Lightweight, durable, and cheap metal created by nanomanufacturing will have a variety of military uses, especially in space. Finally, nanomanufacturing techniques will augment 3-D printing, making complex and scalable designs readily accessible. Already, scientists have produced primitive “molecular motors” and other nanomachines.

Threats: Terrorists and Tyrants

There are three distinct threats posed by nanotechnology. First, the diffusion of nanotech may increase the likelihood of nano-enabled bioterrorism. Nanotechnology is becoming increasingly cheap and user-friendly. “Do-It-Yourself” nanotechnology hardware and open-source instructions are readily available online. For example, one site provides instructions for building a DNA nanotechnology lab for under $500. Another site advertises nanotechnology experiments for the whole family, ages 4 and up . This “democratization” of nanotech creates more opportunities for bad actors to engineer weapons (from “the comfort of your own home!” as the site advertises ). Second, nanotechnology will make it easier for state actors to develop or use advanced CB weapons. Nanotech will make these weapons cheaper to produce and easier to conceal and transport , which will facilitate their proliferation to rogue states. Furthermore, existing national and international laws designed to prevent the spread of dangerous chemicals may be unable to keep pace with the rapid changes brought on by nanotech. Third, the potential for new nano-enabled capabilities may accelerate arms races and undermine strategic stability between the U.S. and its authoritarian great power competitors. Militaries around the world are already fielding expensive - and secretive - research and development programs to harness the technology’s potential. This risks offense-defense spirals that could make war more likely - and bloodier if it occurs.

Challenges: Blurred Lines

Perhaps the greatest challenge to nanotech regulation is its potential as a dual-use good. Many nanotechnologies will have both civilian and military purposes. The same techniques used to create life-saving pharmaceuticals can also be used to create deadly poisons. Crafting policy to prevent misuse without restricting innovation is a major challenge for governance. National governments are hesitant to enact strict controls for fear of dampening the economic and societal benefits of the technology.

Even explicitly military applications are dual-use in that they have both offensive and defensive purposes. This is problematic because most arms control initiatives include provisions allowing research and development of dual-use technology for peaceful or defensive purposes. As legal scholar Robert Pinson writes , “the list of purposes allowed as exceptions...encompass almost every predicted use of nanotechnology.” For example, medicinal applications may easily be adapted for offensive purposes, and the difference between a defensive countermeasure and a counter-countermeasure is largely one of intent.

Scientific Uncertainty

The high degree of scientific uncertainty surrounding nanotechnology will make it difficult to incorporate into the arms control framework. “A central hurdle in attempting to evaluate nanotech’s potential impact on national security and competitiveness is that there is neither a consensual definition of what constitutes nanotechnology or even the nanoscale, nor, as a result, comparable and reliable data and metrics for measuring it,” observed one study . There is a dearth of scientific and economic data for nanotechnology , most importantly its toxicology, environmental impact, economic value, and the feasibility of its applications. This compounds the dual-use conundrum: Because regulation is primarily about risk management, the high degree of uncertainty regarding nanotech makes it difficult to establish a framework for protecting against potential danger without stifling economic and scientific progress.

Furthermore, there is no recognized definition of nanotechnology . One of the most popular definitions is based on size (between 1 to 100 nanometers). This approach is taken by the EU and the International Organization for Standardization. However, this range is somewhat arbitrary – the closer a substance gets to 1nm, the more it will exhibit unique quantum properties. Some countries, like the U.S , have adopted definitions based on these unique properties, rather than solely on size.

The issue of scientific uncertainty is not merely academic. The lack of data and definition is really a lack of an appropriate conceptual framework for nanotechnology that hinders governance at the national and international level. Lucas Bradley’s analysis of several national regulatory schemes illustrates the problem: In the UK chemical regulatory scheme, he writes that regulations “address chemicals of the same type equally, even if one of these chemicals has a unique nanostructure and could behave unpredictably...Laws in Australia, Japan, and the United States compound these problems; chemical regulations focus on ‘new chemicals.’ Many novel nanoparticles are not defined as ‘new chemicals,’ and so the existing chemical regulations tasked with controlling them do not govern them nor have any jurisdiction over their deployment.” This same problem carries over to the international level. A major hurdle to international regulation of nanotech is disagreement over what exactly is being regulated; nanotech does not fit neatly into the traditional conceptual “boxes” of arms control (for example, what constitutes a chemical weapon, or a WMD, WMD, chemical weapons, etc.).

Rapid Emergence and Convergence

Finally, nanotechnology is emerging and converging with other science-technologies at breakneck speed, and the rapid advancement of the technology may outpace existing legal and policy responses. In the near-term, interactions between nanotechnology and other sciences will produce incremental or exponential improvements to existing weapons, blurring the conceptual lines on which arms control and regulatory laws are traditionally based. There are endless combinations of nano-bio-chem-conventional capabilities that, while not revolutionary, could fall between the gaps and seams of the patchwork regulatory regime.

As an example, Pinson considers the Chemical Weapons Convention: Many nanoweapons would meet the CWC’s criteria to be regulated as a “toxic chemical,” he writes, regardless of how they were created or their specific physical properties. However, the CWC would likely not apply to nanoweapons designed to attack machines or other inorganic objects, as they would not cause the requisite “death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals.” This is problematic, because nano-weapons could still cause mass destruction (or at least disruption) by attacking physical infrastructure.

Another illustrative case, articulated by Anne Clunan and Kirsten Rodine-Hardy , is that of the Australia Group (AG), an international forum to prevent the export of products that could be used to produce chemical weapons. The AGs technology annex contains no mention of nanotechnology, nor does it contain a single nano-enabled product. The Wassennaar Arrangement, a forum similar to the AG, compares only slightly better, with 2 nano-products: nanocrystalline alloy strips and nano-imprint lithography tools (neither of which has anything to do with the production of chemical or biological weapons).

These examples highlight the challenge of adapting legal and policy frameworks at the speed of technology. As Pinson points out , the current legal regime “was not written with nanotech in mind. Therefore, manipulating the language to attempt to fit nanotechnology is inappropriate - and often awkward.”

Within the policy community, proposals for “holistic approaches” and “public-private partnerships” have become somewhat clichéd placeholders for tangible solutions. However unsatisfying these may be, they do convey an important message: the future of technology regulation will not be a top-down, government-to-government exchange. Government should certainly take the lead in preventing worst-case scenarios - terrorism, arms races and war - but effective regulation of emerging technology, including nanotech, will require dynamic combinations of hard and soft law measures (that is, enforceable laws and nonbinding norms of behavior). Government’s main role should be as a catalyst and coordinator, encouraging and empowering networks of stakeholders from the scientific community, private industry, and academia.

The first step is to foster the creation of epistemic communities to establish a foundation of shared knowledge around nanotechnology as a unique field. To this end, the United Nations could create an international working group on military nanotechnology. Through this forum, the scientific community could establish a universal definition of nanotechnology, and engage in rigorous, collaborative data collection to better understand the costs, benefits, and risks of the technology. Developing a working concept of nanotechnology will lay the groundwork for better harmonization at the international level.

Export controls will help prevent the proliferation of the most dangerous nano capabilities to terrorist organizations or rogue states. With a baseline of consensual knowledge and understanding of the risks posed by nanotechnology, national governments can begin coordinating their regulatory strategies. This may entail expanding the annexes of the Australia Group and similar entities to include broader categories of nanotechnologies. Alternatively, given the sluggishness of existing export control regimes, an entirely new regime may be required to deal with the unique exigencies of emerging technology.

Additionally, states could update and strengthen existing international law to prevent the production or use of nano-enabled biological or chemical agents. The most important starting point would be the BWC and CWC. Updating the annexes of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions to capture a broader range of nano-enabled agents would ensure the treaties’ continued legal applicability. More important but less likely would be the addition of a robust verification and enforcement regime to give the treaties real “teeth.”

Some experts have proposed that the U.S. and China mitigate the risk of arms racing and strategic instability by promoting greater transparency in research and development programs. Although the current strategic environment is unfavorable for any such agreement, there may be merit to an international dialogue, if only to try to manage the greatest dangers of nanotech, such as militarized “nano-bots” or nonconsensual biological alteration .

To be sure, there is no “silver bullet” solution to the challenges posed by nanotechnology and other emerging technologies, and navigating the uncertain future will be difficult. However, these challenges are neither insurmountable nor unprecedented. It is worth remembering that the arms control regimes now viewed as cumbersome and outmoded were, in fact, innovative solutions to technologies that were, at the time, revolutionary and unprecedented. It is well within our power to harness the promise and mitigate the peril of nanotechnology.

About the Author: 

Nicholas Winstead is a graduate student in the School of International Service at American University. He is currently working towards his masters degree in the Foreign Policy and National Security program.  

*The views expressed here are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Center or any other person or entity at American University.

How Does Nanotechnology Impact the Environment?

While there may be benefits, long-term effects remain uncertain.

Liz is a marine biologist, environmental regulation specialist, and science writer. She has previously studied Antarctic fish, seaweed, and marine coastal ecology.

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Olivia Young is a writer, fact checker, and green living expert passionate about tiny living, climate advocacy, and all things nature. She holds a degree in Journalism from Ohio University.

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Nanotechnology is a broad term for science and technological inventions that operate on the "nano" scale—one billion times smaller than a meter. One nanometer is about three atoms long. The laws of physics operate differently at the nano-scale, causing familiar materials to behave in unexpected ways. For example, aluminum is safely used to package soda and to cover food, but at the nano-scale it's explosive.

Today, nanotechnology is used in medicine, agriculture, and technology. In medicine, nano-sized particles are used to deliver drugs to specific parts of the human body for treatment. Agriculture uses nano-particles to modify the genome of plants to render them resistant to disease, among other improvements. But it is the field of technology that is perhaps doing the most to apply the different physical properties available at the nano-scale to create small, powerful inventions with a mix of potential consequences for the greater environment.

Environmental Pros and Cons of Nanotechnology

Many environmental areas have seen advancements in recent years due to nanotechnology—but the science isn't perfect yet.

Water Quality

Nanotechnology has the potential to provide solutions to poor water quality. With water scarcity only expected to increase in the coming decades, expanding the amount of clean water available around the world is essential.

Nano-sized materials like zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, and tungsten oxide can bind to harmful pollutants, making them inert. Already, nanotechnology capable of neutralizing hazardous materials is being used in wastewater treatment facilities around the world.

Nano-sized particles of molybdenum disulfide can be used to create membranes that remove salt from water with one-fifth the energy of conventional desalination methods. In the event of an oil spill, scientists have developed nano-fabrics capable of selectively absorbing oil. Together, these innovations have the potential to improve many of the world's heavily polluted waterways.

Air Quality

Nanotechnology can also be used to improve air quality, which continues to get worse around the world every year from the release of pollutants by industrial activities. However, the removal of tiny, hazardous particles from the air is technologically challenging. Nanoparticles are used to create precise sensors capable of detecting tiny, harmful pollutants in the air, like heavy metal ions and radioactive elements. One example of these sensors is single-walled nanotubes, or SWNTs. Unlike conventional sensors, which only function at extremely high temperatures, SWNTs can detect nitrogen dioxide and ammonia gases at room temperature. Other sensors can remove toxic gases from the area using nano-sized particles of gold or manganese oxide.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Various nanoparticles are being developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The addition of nanoparticles to fuel can improve fuel efficiency, reducing the rate of greenhouse gas production resulting from fossil fuel use. Other applications of nanotechnology are being developed to selectively capture carbon dioxide.

Nanomaterial Toxicity

While effective, nanomaterials have the potential to unintentionally form new toxic products. The extremely small size of nanomaterials makes it possible for them to pass through otherwise impenetrable barriers, allowing nanoparticles to end up in lymph, blood, and even bone marrow. Given the unique access nanoparticles have to cellular processes, applications of nanotechnology have the potential to cause widespread harm in the environment if sources of toxic nanomaterials are accidentally generated. Rigorous testing of nanoparticles is needed to ensure potential sources of toxicity are discovered before nanoparticles are used at large scales.

Regulation of Nanotechnology

Due to toxic nanomaterial findings, regulations were put in place to ensure nanotechnology research was carried out safely and efficiently.

Toxic Substances Control Act

The Toxic Substances Control Act , or TSCA, is the 1976 U.S. law that gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the authority to require reporting, record keeping, testing, and restrictions to the use of chemical substances. For instance, under the TSCA, the EPA requires testing chemicals known to threaten human health, like lead and asbestos.

Nanomaterials are also regulated under the TSCA as "chemical substances". However, the EPA has only recently begun asserting its authority over nanotechnology. In 2017, the EPA required all companies that manufactured or processed nanomaterials between 2014 and 2017 to provide the EPA with information on the type and quantity of the nanotechnology used. Today, all new forms of nanotechnology must be submitted to the EPA for review before entering the marketplace. The EPA uses this information to assess the potential environmental effects of nanotechnology and to regulate the release of nanomaterials into the environment.

Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council Nanotechnology Initiative

In 2011, the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperative Council was established to help align the regulatory approach of the two countries in various areas, including nanotechnology. Through the RCC's Nanotechnology Initiative, the U.S. and Canada developed a nanotechnology work plan , which established ongoing regulatory coordination and information sharing between the two countries for nanotechnology. Part of the work plan includes sharing information on the environmental effects of nanotechnology, such as applications of nanotechnology known to benefit the environment and forms of nanotechnology found to have environmental consequences. The coordinated research and implementation of nanotechnology helps ensure nanotechnology is used safely.

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Demirer, Gozde S. et al. " Nanotechnology To Advance CRISPR–Cas Genetic Engineering Of Plants ".  Nature Nanotechnology , vol 16, no. 3, 2021, pp. 243-250.  Springer Science And Business Media LLC , doi:10.1038/s41565-021-00854-y

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What Is Nanotechnology? Definition, Applications, and Use Cases

Nanotechnology is the process of engineering materials at the atomic or molecular scale.

• Nanotechnology is defined as the field of science that manipulates matter on a near-atomic scale to design new structures, materials, and devices that thrive at nanoscale dimensions.
• This article explains nanotechnology in detail, its real-world applications, and shares some use cases.

Table of Contents

What is nanotechnology, top 6 nanotechnology applications, use cases of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology refers to the field of science that manipulates matter on a near-atomic scale to design new structures, materials, and devices that thrive at nanoscale dimensions. This technology is crucial for the progress and evolution of several scientific disciplines, including medicine, manufacturing, energy, and materials science and engineering.

In the metric system, a nanometer refers to a unit of length. The word ‘nano’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Nanos,’ which equates to ‘dwarf’ or something extremely small. Technically, one centimeter = 1/100 of a meter while a nanometer (nm) = one billionth of a meter. Thus, all nanoscale structures typically have a dimensional range or length between 1 and 100 nanometers.

To better visualize the nanoscale size, let’s look at some of the examples. If you observe the human skin under a magnifying glass, you reach the millimeter dimension = 1/1000 of a meter. Instead, if you use a microscope to study the skin, you work at a micrometer scale (1/1000 of a millimeter), which allows you to examine the skin cells. Typically, cells, bacteria, and silicon chips are measured in micrometers.

A nanometer (10 -9 ) scale is smaller and primarily used to measure atoms and molecules. An atom that makes up all matter around us has a width in the range of 0.1 to 0.5 nm; a human hair is 50k nm to 100k nm thick, a single DNA strand is 2.5 nm wide, and a sheet of paper is 75k nm thick. This tiny dimensional space represents the nanoscale world.

Why is nanoscale relevant?

In the 20th century, researchers across the globe made a revelation that fundamentally changed our understanding of nanoscale materials. According to scientists, materials with at least one facet — length, breadth, or height in the 1 to 100 nm range — tend to reveal distinct physical and chemical properties compared to the same materials at the macroscale capacity.

Let’s consider an example of silver material. If we break it down into smaller proportions, each piece still showcases basic properties such as density, texture, boiling point, thermal conductivity, and others, just like the original silver. However, all these properties change at the nanoscale level based on size, shape, and composition. This implies that the properties exhibited by materials at the nanoscale are not manifested by the same material at any other length.

Although it is hard to define the size or composition parameters at which the properties of a material change, material dimensions have their own relevance. For example, gold material expresses different colors at different nanoscale dimensions. It is orange in color at 100 nm and green at 50 nm. However, it is worth noting that gold particles show distinct catalytic properties that vary according to material size only at lengths below 5 nm.

Development of nanotechnology

Nanometer materials have existed for years. However, scientific tools and techniques to observe and manipulate them have come to the fore only in recent decades. Its development dates back to the 17th century when the optical microscope was developed. The microscope made the invisible world of biological organisms visible to humans. However, it had a serious bottleneck of magnification as the wavelength of visible light ranges between 400 to 750 nm, which is far more than any nanoscale material.

With the introduction of the electron microscope in 1931, this limitation of the visible light spectrum was resolved. Fast forward to 1981, the first scanning tunneling microscope (STM) was introduced, which not just allowed professionals to view tiny objects but also fiddle with unique object qualities that varied according to their size, shape, and composition.

Today, STM and electron microscopes are vital units in nanotech labs as they bring the world of nanoscale particles of 0.05 nm or lesser size to life. These advanced instruments are crucial to capture the dynamic properties shown by nanomaterials and harness them to solve modern-day problems such as improving fuel efficiency, building advanced computers, designing complex medical diagnostic equipment, or promoting the use of renewable energy sources.

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Nanotechnology has penetrated all walks of life, from food processing and efficient drug delivery to the design of small transistors used by electronic chips. With the proliferation of IoT devices recently, nanotechnology applications have grown significantly. According to an October 2022 report by MarketWatch, the global nanotechnology market reached a valuation of $1.97 billion in 2021 and is estimated to climb to $34.3 billion by the end of 2030.

Although nanotechnology has multidisciplinary applications, let’s look at the top six areas where nanotechnologies significantly impact today.

Nanotechnology Applications

1. Nanomaterials

Advancements in nanotechnology have led to the development of nanomaterials that are used across day-to-day applications, from fabrics, cosmetics, and sportswear, to camera displays and eyewear. With the help of nanotech, material properties can be tweaked to make them durable and stronger, have better electrical & thermal conductivity, and so on. Typically, in the clothing sector, fabrics can be made wrinkle-free and resistant to micro-bacterial growth.

Nanomaterials are also an important component of lithium-ion batteries. For instance, a nanotech firm, Nano One Materials Corp., has joined hands with Johnson Matthey, a sustainable technology company, to develop low-cost nanomaterials that would be specifically used in lithium-ion batteries. Such batteries could find applications in electric vehicles, consumer electronics, or even the energy storage domain.

2. Medicine

In the healthcare sector, nanotech is extensively used while exercising therapy techniques, designing diagnostics, and developing efficient drug delivery systems. For example, Medlab Clinical Limited, a biotech company, has developed NanoCelle, a drug delivery platform that creates nano-sized particles and ingests them directly into a patient’s bloodstream via oral, buccal mucosa (cheek). Recently, Medlab received a New South Wales (NSW) Government grant to develop a nasal vaccine for COVID-19, which will be delivered via this non-invasive NanoCelle platform.

Nanotech is also employed to develop antiviral drugs. For example, NanoViricides is a company that designs nanomaterials specifically used for antiviral therapy. The firm also develops nanomedicines that can fight viral infections, such as the ones observed in influenza, HIV/AIDS, or dengue fever.

3. Food industry

In the food industry, nanotech is applied to intensify food flavor and color while performing food processing steps. It is also vital for food preservation as microbes can significantly reduce the food’s shelf life. Considering the consequences, nanotech-based food packaging solutions are used to maintain the safety and quality of food products.

Also, during the agricultural cultivation process, farmers can now use nanomaterials as this tends to keep a check on pesticide use on crops and yet deliver essential nutrients to them. Thus, from food production, processing, and preservation to packaging, nanotech has become an indispensable part of food science.

4. Electronics sector

The rate of technological advancement has overthrown the well-known Moore’s Law, which predicts that the number of transistors on silicon chips grows 2x each year. Circuits have gotten smaller and smaller at a rapid pace. For instance, in 2015, tech giant IBM revealed that it would use transistors of 7 nm size. A couple of years later, the organization announced the launch of a 5 nm chip. In 2021, the company disclosed that it had created a 2 nm chip that showed 45% higher performance than the previously designed 7 nm chips.

Similarly, Samsung, a telecom leader, designed a nanotech process that gives tiny chips more power than state-of-the-art chips. In mid-2021, Samsung partnered with Synopsys to advance the 3 nm gate-all-around tech that can benefit AI applications , 5G devices, and high-performance computing applications. In 2022, the semiconductor company ordered mass production of 3 nm chips that consumed 45% less power and 23% enhanced performance over 5 nm chips, such as Apple’s M1 and M2 chips.

5. Energy space

In the energy sector, nanotech is primarily used to develop energy storage solutions and advance oil & gas recovery processes. For instance, PyroGenesis Canada, a tech company, uses plasma-based techniques to help oil & gas companies design sustainable solutions for oil & gas exploration and production. This plasma-based approach is also adopted by several manufacturing industries and 3D printing companies.

Moreover, in the renewable energy area, nanotech is employed to elevate the performance of solar cells. For example, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a national laboratory in the US, developed ‘nanocones’ out of zinc oxide, boosting solar cells’ overall efficiency.

6. Environment

Nanotechnology is pivotal when it comes to developing environmental applications. For instance, the International Institute of Nanotechnology, which promotes nanoscience research in the US, has created a nanocomposite membrane that absorbs and releases water pollutants such as phosphates. The membrane helps control phosphate pollution in rivers, lakes, and other water bodies.

Nanotech is also used in air quality treatment. For instance, Nanomatrix Materials, an Indian firm, has designed AC filters that rely on graphene-silver nanotechnology to keep the indoor air clean while protecting users from airborne viruses. In other words, typical air conditioners are transformed into air purifiers.

Such purifiers also aid in addressing the COVID-19 issue. In 2020, Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel collaborated with Rice University and developed graphene-based air filters capable of self-sterilizing and purifying the surrounding air. These filters also help in decontaminating water bodies.

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Today, nanotech innovations have become an inevitable part of our everyday lives. Our households invariably reveal a nanotech touch as routinely used products such as cosmetics, fabrics, furniture, adhesives, and even vehicular paints are a consequence of nanomaterial engineering.

Let’s look at some use cases of nanotechnology.

1. Cosmetic products

Nanoparticles such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are added to cosmetic products such as sunscreens because they block UV light. These fine particles are capable of absorbing and scattering visible light. As a result, modern sunscreens feel light and appear transparent when applied to the skin.

Nanoparticles such as silica exhibit water-repellent properties. They are either sprayed on the fabric surface or woven into it to ensure water does not enter the fabric. It is widely used in umbrellas and raincoats.

Clothing apparels such as T-shirts, trousers, and even socks have silver nanoparticles sprayed over them due to their antibacterial properties. These nanoparticles tend to kill microbes that evoke strong odor, allowing the apparel to be used for a longer duration without having to be washed. Moreover, ultra-fine particles of titanium dioxide are used to make cotton fabrics wrinkle-free.

3. Furniture

Nanoparticles such as silver, copper, and zinc are applied on household furniture because they can fight against pests or fungi that develop over time. Moreover, titanium dioxide particles are also applied in some cases as it acts as a dust and contaminant repellent.

Applying nanomaterial-based coatings and varnishes can extend the life of any furniture while lowering its maintenance costs. According to a research study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the flammability of upholstered furniture reduces by 35% when coated with carbon nanofibers.

4. Adhesives

Nanotechnology is often used to develop durable adhesives. Generally, adhesives become less sticky at higher temperatures. However, nano-glue developed by US researchers harnesses molecular chains to stick to surfaces and make them capable of withstanding high temperatures, unlike traditional adhesives. These developed adhesives are only 1 nm thick and are suitable for electronic chips and machines usually exposed to high temperatures.

5. Vehicular coatings

Vehicles have nano-ceramic coatings that mix with sealants to protect them from UV light and contaminants. These nanocoatings also safeguard vehicles from bird droppings composed of uric acid.

Nanorepel, a nanotech company that produces surface protection coatings for cars, has developed a high-performance coating that not only protects cars from bird waste but when applied on upholstery car components, stays free from stains and dirty spots.

In the sporting industry, nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes or silica nanoparticles are applied to sports equipment to enhance performance. These materials are key to equipment durability as they reduce equipment wear and tear and weight, amplifying its overall strength. As such, golf clubs, skateboards, tennis racquets, and sports bikes feel lighter when used by sportspeople.

Also, nanoclays applied on the interiors of tennis balls optimize ball bounce and prevent leakage, if any. As a result, these tennis balls can withstand longer rallies during a match.

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Nanotechnology provides a pathway to study and design new materials that improve our lives. However, it is worth noting that nanotech does not refer to typical products such as electronic chips or smartphones. Instead, it defines a process that exploits the properties of nanomaterials to design and develop such products and devices.

In 1908, Henry Ford came up with the idea of introducing assembly lines in automobile manufacturing plants. As a result, the cost of production lowered significantly, and the end product became substantially affordable. Thus, common US citizens could buy less expensive yet new automobiles. The improved automobile manufacturing framework eventually led to the industrial revolution like none other.

Similarly, nanotech has great potential to start another industrial revolution as it has a quantifiable impact on different sectors such as healthcare, the environment, clothing, etc. Only time will reveal how we adapt to nanotech advancements in the future.

Do you think nanotechnology can fuel another industrial revolution? Let us know on Facebook Opens a new window , Twitter Opens a new window , or LinkedIn Opens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!

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Why the Future Doesn't Need Us

From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil , the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.

Ray and I were both speakers at George Gilder 's Telecosm conference, and I encountered him by chance in the bar of the hotel after both our sessions were over. I was sitting with John Searle, a Berkeley philosopher who studies consciousness. While we were talking, Ray approached and a conversation began, the subject of which haunts me to this day.

I had missed Ray's talk and the subsequent panel that Ray and John had been on, and they now picked right up where they'd left off, with Ray saying that the rate of improvement of technology was going to accelerate and that we were going to become robots or fuse with robots or something like that, and John countering that this couldn't happen, because the robots couldn't be conscious .

While I had heard such talk before, I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. But now, from someone I respected, I was hearing a strong argument that they were a near-term possibility. I was taken aback, especially given Ray's proven ability to imagine and create the future. I already knew that new technologies like genetic engineering and nanotechnology were giving us the power to remake the world, but a realistic and imminent scenario for intelligent robots surprised me.

It's easy to get jaded about such breakthroughs. We hear in the news almost every day of some kind of technological or scientific advance. Yet this was no ordinary prediction. In the hotel bar, Ray gave me a partial preprint of his then-forthcoming book The Age of Spiritual Machines , which outlined a utopia he foresaw—one in which humans gained near immortality by becoming one with robotic technology. On reading it, my sense of unease only intensified; I felt sure he had to be understating the dangers, understating the probability of a bad outcome along this path.

I found myself most troubled by a passage detailing a dystopian scenario:

First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

Amit Katwala

Andy Greenberg

Caroline Haskins

On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite—just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes “treatment” to cure his “problem.” Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them “sublimate” their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals. 1

In the book, you don't discover until you turn the page that the author of this passage is Theodore Kaczynski—the Unabomber. I am no apologist for Kaczynski. His bombs killed three people during a 17-year terror campaign and wounded many others. One of his bombs gravely injured my friend David Gelernter, one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time. Like many of my colleagues, I felt that I could easily have been the Unabomber's next target.

Kaczynski's actions were murderous and, in my view, criminally insane. He is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument; as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it.

Kaczynski's dystopian vision describes unintended consequences, a well-known problem with the design and use of technology, and one that is clearly related to Murphy's law—“Anything that can go wrong, will.” (Actually, this is Finagle's law, which in itself shows that Finagle was right.) Our overuse of antibiotics has led to what may be the biggest such problem so far: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant and much more dangerous bacteria. Similar things happened when attempts to eliminate malarial mosquitoes using DDT caused them to acquire DDT resistance; malarial parasites likewise acquired multi-drug-resistant genes. 2

The cause of many such surprises seems clear: The systems involved are complex, involving interaction among and feedback between many parts. Any changes to such a system will cascade in ways that are difficult to predict; this is especially true when human actions are involved.

I started showing friends the Kaczynski quote from The Age of Spiritual Machines ; I would hand them Kurzweil's book, let them read the quote, and then watch their reaction as they discovered who had written it. At around the same time, I found Hans Moravec's book Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind . Moravec is one of the leaders in robotics research, and was a founder of the world's largest robotics research program, at Carnegie Mellon University. Robot gave me more material to try out on my friends—material surprisingly supportive of Kaczynski's argument. For example:

Biological species almost never survive encounters with superior competitors. Ten million years ago, South and North America were separated by a sunken Panama isthmus. South America, like Australia today, was populated by marsupial mammals, including pouched equivalents of rats, deers, and tigers. When the isthmus connecting North and South America rose, it took only a few thousand years for the northern placental species, with slightly more effective metabolisms and reproductive and nervous systems, to displace and eliminate almost all the southern marsupials.

In a completely free marketplace, superior robots would surely affect humans as North American placentals affected South American marsupials (and as humans have affected countless species). Robotic industries would compete vigorously among themselves for matter, energy, and space, incidentally driving their price beyond human reach. Unable to afford the necessities of life, biological humans would be squeezed out of existence.

There is probably some breathing room, because we do not live in a completely free marketplace. Government coerces nonmarket behavior, especially by collecting taxes. Judiciously applied, governmental coercion could support human populations in high style on the fruits of robot labor, perhaps for a long while.

A textbook dystopia—and Moravec is just getting wound up. He goes on to discuss how our main job in the 21st century will be “ensuring continued cooperation from the robot industries” by passing laws decreeing that they be “nice,” and to describe how seriously dangerous a human can be “once transformed into an unbounded superintelligent robot.” 3 Moravec's view is that the robots will eventually succeed us—that humans clearly face extinction.

I decided it was time to talk to my friend Danny Hillis. Danny became famous as the cofounder of Thinking Machines Corporation, which built a very powerful parallel supercomputer. Despite my current job title of Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems, I am more a computer architect than a scientist, and I respect Danny's knowledge of the information and physical sciences more than that of any other single person I know. Danny is also a highly regarded futurist who thinks long-term—four years ago he started the Long Now Foundation, which is building a clock designed to last 10,000 years, in an attempt to draw attention to the pitifully short attention span of our society. (See “ Test of Time ,” Wired 8.03.)

So I flew to Los Angeles for the express purpose of having dinner with Danny and his wife, Pati. I went through my now-familiar routine, trotting out the ideas and passages that I found so disturbing. Danny's answer—directed specifically at Kurzweil's scenario of humans merging with robots—came swiftly, and quite surprised me. He said, simply, that the changes would come gradually, and that we would get used to them.

But I guess I wasn't totally surprised. I had seen a quote from Danny in Kurzweil's book in which he said, “I'm as fond of my body as anyone, but if I can be 200 with a body of silicon, I'll take it.” It seemed that he was at peace with this process and its attendant risks, while I was not.

While talking and thinking about Kurzweil, Kaczynski, and Moravec, I suddenly remembered a novel I had read almost 20 years ago - The White Plague , by Frank Herbert—in which a molecular biologist is driven insane by the senseless murder of his family. To seek revenge he constructs and disseminates a new and highly contagious plague that kills widely but selectively. (We're lucky Kaczynski was a mathematician, not a molecular biologist.) I was also reminded of the Borg of Star Trek , a hive of partly biological, partly robotic creatures with a strong destructive streak. Borg-like disasters are a staple of science fiction, so why hadn't I been more concerned about such robotic dystopias earlier? Why weren't other people more concerned about these nightmarish scenarios?

Part of the answer certainly lies in our attitude toward the new—in our bias toward instant familiarity and unquestioning acceptance. Accustomed to living with almost routine scientific breakthroughs, we have yet to come to terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology—pose a different threat than the technologies that have come before. Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once—but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control.

Much of my work over the past 25 years has been on computer networking, where the sending and receiving of messages creates the opportunity for out-of-control replication. But while replication in a computer or a computer network can be a nuisance, at worst it disables a machine or takes down a network or network service. Uncontrolled self-replication in these newer technologies runs a much greater risk: a risk of substantial damage in the physical world.

Each of these technologies also offers untold promise: The vision of near immortality that Kurzweil sees in his robot dreams drives us forward; genetic engineering may soon provide treatments, if not outright cures, for most diseases; and nanotechnology and nanomedicine can address yet more ills. Together they could significantly extend our average life span and improve the quality of our lives. Yet, with each of these technologies, a sequence of small, individually sensible advances leads to an accumulation of great power and, concomitantly, great danger.

What was different in the 20th century? Certainly, the technologies underlying the weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC)—were powerful, and the weapons an enormous threat. But building nuclear weapons required, at least for a time, access to both rare—indeed, effectively unavailable—raw materials and highly protected information; biological and chemical weapons programs also tended to require large-scale activities.

The 21st-century technologies—genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR)—are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them.

Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication.

I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

Nothing about the way I got involved with computers suggested to me that I was going to be facing these kinds of issues.

My life has been driven by a deep need to ask questions and find answers. When I was 3, I was already reading, so my father took me to the elementary school, where I sat on the principal's lap and read him a story. I started school early, later skipped a grade, and escaped into books—I was incredibly motivated to learn. I asked lots of questions, often driving adults to distraction.

As a teenager I was very interested in science and technology. I wanted to be a ham radio operator but didn't have the money to buy the equipment. Ham radio was the Internet of its time: very addictive, and quite solitary. Money issues aside, my mother put her foot down—I was not to be a ham; I was antisocial enough already.

I may not have had many close friends, but I was awash in ideas. By high school, I had discovered the great science fiction writers. I remember especially Heinlein's Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Asimov’s I, Robot , with its Three Laws of Robotics. I was enchanted by the descriptions of space travel, and wanted to have a telescope to look at the stars; since I had no money to buy or make one, I checked books on telescope-making out of the library and read about making them instead. I soared in my imagination.

Thursday nights my parents went bowling, and we kids stayed home alone. It was the night of Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek , and the program made a big impression on me. I came to accept its notion that humans had a future in space, Western-style, with big heroes and adventures. Roddenberry's vision of the centuries to come was one with strong moral values, embodied in codes like the Prime Directive: to not interfere in the development of less technologically advanced civilizations. This had an incredible appeal to me; ethical humans, not robots, dominated this future, and I took Roddenberry's dream as part of my own.

I excelled in mathematics in high school, and when I went to the University of Michigan as an undergraduate engineering student I took the advanced curriculum of the mathematics majors. Solving math problems was an exciting challenge, but when I discovered computers I found something much more interesting: a machine into which you could put a program that attempted to solve a problem, after which the machine quickly checked the solution. The computer had a clear notion of correct and incorrect, true and false. Were my ideas correct? The machine could tell me. This was very seductive.

I was lucky enough to get a job programming early supercomputers and discovered the amazing power of large machines to numerically simulate advanced designs. When I went to graduate school at UC Berkeley in the mid-1970s, I started staying up late, often all night, inventing new worlds inside the machines. Solving problems. Writing the code that argued so strongly to be written.

In The Agony and the Ecstasy , Irving Stone's biographical novel of Michelangelo, Stone described vividly how Michelangelo released the statues from the stone, “breaking the marble spell,” carving from the images in his mind. 4  In my most ecstatic moments, the software in the computer emerged in the same way. Once I had imagined it in my mind I felt that it was already there in the machine, waiting to be released. Staying up all night seemed a small price to pay to free it—to give the ideas concrete form.

After a few years at Berkeley I started to send out some of the software I had written—an instructional Pascal system, Unix utilities, and a text editor called vi (which is still, to my surprise, widely used more than 20 years later)—to others who had similar small PDP-11 and VAX minicomputers. These adventures in software eventually turned into the Berkeley version of the Unix operating system, which became a personal “success disaster”—so many people wanted it that I never finished my PhD. Instead I got a job working for Darpa putting Berkeley Unix on the Internet and fixing it to be reliable and to run large research applications well. This was all great fun and very rewarding. And, frankly, I saw no robots here, or anywhere near.

Still, by the early 1980s, I was drowning. The Unix releases were very successful, and my little project of one soon had money and some staff, but the problem at Berkeley was always office space rather than money—there wasn't room for the help the project needed, so when the other founders of Sun Microsystems showed up I jumped at the chance to join them. At Sun, the long hours continued into the early days of workstations and personal computers, and I have enjoyed participating in the creation of advanced microprocessor technologies and Internet technologies such as Java and Jini.

From all this, I trust it is clear that I am not a Luddite. I have always, rather, had a strong belief in the value of the scientific search for truth and in the ability of great engineering to bring material progress. The Industrial Revolution has immeasurably improved everyone's life over the last couple hundred years, and I always expected my career to involve the building of worthwhile solutions to real problems, one problem at a time.

I have not been disappointed. My work has had more impact than I had ever hoped for and has been more widely used than I could have reasonably expected. I have spent the last 20 years still trying to figure out how to make computers as reliable as I want them to be (they are not nearly there yet) and how to make them simple to use (a goal that has met with even less relative success). Despite some progress, the problems that remain seem even more daunting.

But while I was aware of the moral dilemmas surrounding technology's consequences in fields like weapons research, I did not expect that I would confront such issues in my own field, or at least not so soon.

Perhaps it is always hard to see the bigger impact while you are in the vortex of a change. Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science's quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own.

I have long realized that the big advances in information technology come not from the work of computer scientists, computer architects, or electrical engineers, but from that of physical scientists. The physicists Stephen Wolfram and Brosl Hasslacher introduced me, in the early 1980s, to chaos theory and nonlinear systems. In the 1990s, I learned about complex systems from conversations with Danny Hillis, the biologist Stuart Kauffman, the Nobel-laureate physicist Murray Gell-Mann, and others. Most recently, Hasslacher and the electrical engineer and device physicist Mark Reed have been giving me insight into the incredible possibilities of molecular electronics.

In my own work, as codesigner of three microprocessor architectures—SPARC, picoJava, and MAJC—and as the designer of several implementations thereof, I've been afforded a deep and firsthand acquaintance with Moore's law. For decades, Moore's law has correctly predicted the exponential rate of improvement of semiconductor technology. Until last year I believed that the rate of advances predicted by Moore's law might continue only until roughly 2010, when some physical limits would begin to be reached. It was not obvious to me that a new technology would arrive in time to keep performance advancing smoothly.

But because of the recent rapid and radical progress in molecular electronics—where individual atoms and molecules replace lithographically drawn transistors—and related nanoscale technologies, we should be able to meet or exceed the Moore's law rate of progress for another 30 years. By 2030, we are likely to be able to build machines, in quantity, a million times as powerful as the personal computers of today—sufficient to implement the dreams of Kurzweil and Moravec.

As this enormous computing power is combined with the manipulative advances of the physical sciences and the new, deep understandings in genetics, enormous transformative power is being unleashed. These combinations open up the opportunity to completely redesign the world, for better or worse: The replicating and evolving processes that have been confined to the natural world are about to become realms of human endeavor.

In designing software and microprocessors, I have never had the feeling that I was designing an intelligent machine. The software and hardware is so fragile and the capabilities of the machine to “think” so clearly absent that, even as a possibility, this has always seemed very far in the future.

But now, with the prospect of human-level computing power in about 30 years, a new idea suggests itself: that I may be working to create tools which will enable the construction of the technology that may replace our species. How do I feel about this? Very uncomfortable. Having struggled my entire career to build reliable software systems, it seems to me more than likely that this future will not work out as well as some people may imagine. My personal experience suggests we tend to overestimate our design abilities.

Given the incredible power of these new technologies, shouldn't we be asking how we can best coexist with them? And if our own extinction is a likely, or even possible, outcome of our technological development, shouldn't we proceed with great caution?

The dream of robotics is, first, that intelligent machines can do our work for us, allowing us lives of leisure, restoring us to Eden. Yet in his history of such ideas, Darwin Among the Machines , George Dyson warns: “In the game of life and evolution there are three players at the table: human beings, nature, and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines.” As we have seen, Moravec agrees, believing we may well not survive the encounter with the superior robot species.

How soon could such an intelligent robot be built? The coming advances in computing power seem to make it possible by 2030. And once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species—to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself.

A second dream of robotics is that we will gradually replace ourselves with our robotic technology, achieving near immortality by downloading our consciousnesses; it is this process that Danny Hillis thinks we will gradually get used to and that Ray Kurzweil elegantly details in The Age of Spiritual Machines . (We are beginning to see intimations of this in the implantation of computer devices into the human body, as illustrated on the cover of Wired 8.02.)

But if we are downloaded into our technology, what are the chances that we will thereafter be ourselves or even human? It seems to me far more likely that a robotic existence would not be like a human one in any sense that we understand, that the robots would in no sense be our children, that on this path our humanity may well be lost.

Genetic engineering promises to revolutionize agriculture by increasing crop yields while reducing the use of pesticides; to create tens of thousands of novel species of bacteria, plants, viruses, and animals; to replace reproduction, or supplement it, with cloning; to create cures for many diseases, increasing our life span and our quality of life; and much, much more. We now know with certainty that these profound changes in the biological sciences are imminent and will challenge all our notions of what life is.

Technologies such as human cloning have in particular raised our awareness of the profound ethical and moral issues we face. If, for example, we were to reengineer ourselves into several separate and unequal species using the power of genetic engineering, then we would threaten the notion of equality that is the very cornerstone of our democracy.

Given the incredible power of genetic engineering, it's no surprise that there are significant safety issues in its use. My friend Amory Lovins recently cowrote, along with Hunter Lovins, an editorial that provides an ecological view of some of these dangers. Among their concerns: that “the new botany aligns the development of plants with their economic, not evolutionary, success.” (See “ A Tale of Two Botanies ”) Amory's long career has been focused on energy and resource efficiency by taking a whole-system view of human-made systems; such a whole-system view often finds simple, smart solutions to otherwise seemingly difficult problems, and is usefully applied here as well.

After reading the Lovins' editorial, I saw an op-ed by Gregg Easterbrook in The New York Times (November 19, 1999) about genetically engineered crops, under the headline: “Food for the Future: Someday, rice will have built-in vitamin A. Unless the Luddites win.”

Are Amory and Hunter Lovins Luddites? Certainly not. I believe we all would agree that golden rice, with its built-in vitamin A, is probably a good thing, if developed with proper care and respect for the likely dangers in moving genes across species boundaries.

Awareness of the dangers inherent in genetic engineering is beginning to grow, as reflected in the Lovins’ editorial. The general public is aware of, and uneasy about, genetically modified foods, and seems to be rejecting the notion that such foods should be permitted to be unlabeled.

But genetic engineering technology is already very far along. As the Lovins note, the USDA has already approved about 50 genetically engineered crops for unlimited release; more than half of the world's soybeans and a third of its corn now contain genes spliced in from other forms of life.

While there are many important issues here, my own major concern with genetic engineering is narrower: that it gives the power—whether militarily, accidentally, or in a deliberate terrorist act—to create a White Plague.

The many wonders of nanotechnology were first imagined by the Nobel-laureate physicist Richard Feynman in a speech he gave in 1959, subsequently published under the title “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” The book that made a big impression on me, in the mid-‘80s, was Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation , in which he described beautifully how manipulation of matter at the atomic level could create a utopian future of abundance, where just about everything could be made cheaply, and almost any imaginable disease or physical problem could be solved using nanotechnology and artificial intelligences.

A subsequent book, Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution , which Drexler cowrote, imagines some of the changes that might take place in a world where we had molecular-level “assemblers.” Assemblers could make possible incredibly low-cost solar power, cures for cancer and the common cold by augmentation of the human immune system, essentially complete cleanup of the environment, incredibly inexpensive pocket supercomputers—in fact, any product would be manufacturable by assemblers at a cost no greater than that of wood—spaceflight more accessible than transoceanic travel today, and restoration of extinct species.

I remember feeling good about nanotechnology after reading Engines of Creation . As a technologist, it gave me a sense of calm—that is, nanotechnology showed us that incredible progress was possible, and indeed perhaps inevitable. If nanotechnology was our future, then I didn't feel pressed to solve so many problems in the present. I would get to Drexler's utopian future in due time; I might as well enjoy life more in the here and now. It didn't make sense, given his vision, to stay up all night, all the time.

Drexler's vision also led to a lot of good fun. I would occasionally get to describe the wonders of nanotechnology to others who had not heard of it. After teasing them with all the things Drexler described I would give a homework assignment of my own: “Use nanotechnology to create a vampire; for extra credit create an antidote.”

With these wonders came clear dangers, of which I was acutely aware. As I said at a nanotechnology conference in 1989, “We can't simply do our science and not worry about these ethical issues.” 5 But my subsequent conversations with physicists convinced me that nanotechnology might not even work—or, at least, it wouldn't work anytime soon. Shortly thereafter I moved to Colorado, to a skunk works I had set up, and the focus of my work shifted to software for the Internet, specifically on ideas that became Java and Jini.

Then, last summer, Brosl Hasslacher told me that nanoscale molecular electronics was now practical. This was new news, at least to me, and I think to many people—and it radically changed my opinion about nanotechnology. It sent me back to Engines of Creation . Rereading Drexler's work after more than 10 years, I was dismayed to realize how little I had remembered of its lengthy section called “Dangers and Hopes,” including a discussion of how nanotechnologies can become “engines of destruction.” Indeed, in my rereading of this cautionary material today, I am struck by how naive some of Drexler's safeguard proposals seem, and how much greater I judge the dangers to be now than even he seemed to then. (Having anticipated and described many technical and political problems with nanotechnology, Drexler started the Foresight Institute in the late 1980s “to help prepare society for anticipated advanced technologies”—most important, nanotechnology.)

The enabling breakthrough to assemblers seems quite likely within the next 20 years. Molecular electronics—the new subfield of nanotechnology where individual molecules are circuit elements—should mature quickly and become enormously lucrative within this decade, causing a large incremental investment in all nanotechnologies.

Unfortunately, as with nuclear technology, it is far easier to create destructive uses for nanotechnology than constructive ones. Nanotechnology has clear military and terrorist uses, and you need not be suicidal to release a massively destructive nanotechnological device—such devices can be built to be selectively destructive, affecting, for example, only a certain geographical area or a group of people who are genetically distinct.

An immediate consequence of the Faustian bargain in obtaining the great power of nanotechnology is that we run a grave risk—the risk that we might destroy the biosphere on which all life depends.

As Drexler explained:

“Plants” with “leaves” no more efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an inedible foliage. Tough omnivorous "bacteria" could out-compete real bacteria: They could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days. Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop—at least if we make no preparation. We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.

Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the “gray goo problem.” Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term “gray goo” emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be superior in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable.

The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: We cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers.

Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our human adventure on Earth, far worse than mere fire or ice, and one that could stem from a simple laboratory accident. 6 Oops.

It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause. Self-replication is the modus operandi of genetic engineering, which uses the machinery of the cell to replicate its designs, and the prime danger underlying gray goo in nanotechnology. Stories of run-amok robots like the Borg, replicating or mutating to escape from the ethical constraints imposed on them by their creators, are well established in our science fiction books and movies. It is even possible that self-replication may be more fundamental than we thought, and hence harder—or even impossible—to control. A recent article by Stuart Kauffman in Nature titled “Self-Replication: Even Peptides Do It” discusses the discovery that a 32-amino-acid peptide can “autocatalyse its own synthesis.” We don't know how widespread this ability is, but Kauffman notes that it may hint at “a route to self-reproducing molecular systems on a basis far wider than Watson-Crick base-pairing.” 7

In truth, we have had in hand for years clear warnings of the dangers inherent in widespread knowledge of GNR technologies—of the possibility of knowledge alone enabling mass destruction. But these warnings haven't been widely publicized; the public discussions have been clearly inadequate. There is no profit in publicizing the dangers.

The nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) technologies used in 20th-century weapons of mass destruction were and are largely military, developed in government laboratories. In sharp contrast, the 21st-century GNR technologies have clear commercial uses and are being developed almost exclusively by corporate enterprises. In this age of triumphant commercialism, technology—with science as its handmaiden—is delivering a series of almost magical inventions that are the most phenomenally lucrative ever seen. We are aggressively pursuing the promises of these new technologies within the now-unchallenged system of global capitalism and its manifold financial incentives and competitive pressures.

This is the first moment in the history of our planet when any species, by its own voluntary actions, has become a danger to itself—as well as to vast numbers of others.

It might be a familiar progression, transpiring on many worlds—a planet, newly formed, placidly revolves around its star; life slowly forms; a kaleidoscopic procession of creatures evolves; intelligence emerges which, at least up to a point, confers enormous survival value; and then technology is invented. It dawns on them that there are such things as laws of Nature, that these laws can be revealed by experiment, and that knowledge of these laws can be made both to save and to take lives, both on unprecedented scales. Science, they recognize, grants immense powers. In a flash, they create world-altering contrivances. Some planetary civilizations see their way through, place limits on what may and what must not be done, and safely pass through the time of perils. Others, not so lucky or so prudent, perish.

That is Carl Sagan, writing in 1994, in Pale Blue Dot , a book describing his vision of the human future in space. I am only now realizing how deep his insight was, and how sorely I miss, and will miss, his voice. For all its eloquence, Sagan's contribution was not least that of simple common sense—an attribute that, along with humility, many of the leading advocates of the 21st-century technologies seem to lack.

I remember from my childhood that my grandmother was strongly against the overuse of antibiotics. She had worked since before the first World War as a nurse and had a commonsense attitude that taking antibiotics, unless they were absolutely necessary, was bad for you.

It is not that she was an enemy of progress. She saw much progress in an almost 70-year nursing career; my grandfather, a diabetic, benefited greatly from the improved treatments that became available in his lifetime. But she, like many levelheaded people, would probably think it greatly arrogant for us, now, to be designing a robotic “replacement species,” when we obviously have so much trouble making relatively simple things work, and so much trouble managing—or even understanding—ourselves.

I realize now that she had an awareness of the nature of the order of life, and of the necessity of living with and respecting that order. With this respect comes a necessary humility that we, with our early-21st-century chutzpah, lack at our peril. The commonsense view, grounded in this respect, is often right, in advance of the scientific evidence. The clear fragility and inefficiencies of the human-made systems we have built should give us all pause; the fragility of the systems I have worked on certainly humbles me.

We should have learned a lesson from the making of the first atomic bomb and the resulting arms race. We didn't do well then, and the parallels to our current situation are troubling.

The effort to build the first atomic bomb was led by the brilliant physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was not naturally interested in politics but became painfully aware of what he perceived as the grave threat to Western civilization from the Third Reich, a threat surely grave because of the possibility that Hitler might obtain nuclear weapons. Energized by this concern, he brought his strong intellect, passion for physics, and charismatic leadership skills to Los Alamos and led a rapid and successful effort by an incredible collection of great minds to quickly invent the bomb.

What is striking is how this effort continued so naturally after the initial impetus was removed. In a meeting shortly after V-E Day with some physicists who felt that perhaps the effort should stop, Oppenheimer argued to continue. His stated reason seems a bit strange: not because of the fear of large casualties from an invasion of Japan, but because the United Nations, which was soon to be formed, should have foreknowledge of atomic weapons. A more likely reason the project continued is the momentum that had built up—the first atomic test, Trinity, was nearly at hand.

We know that in preparing this first atomic test the physicists proceeded despite a large number of possible dangers. They were initially worried, based on a calculation by Edward Teller, that an atomic explosion might set fire to the atmosphere. A revised calculation reduced the danger of destroying the world to a three-in-a-million chance. (Teller says he was later able to dismiss the prospect of atmospheric ignition entirely.) Oppenheimer, though, was sufficiently concerned about the result of Trinity that he arranged for a possible evacuation of the southwest part of the state of New Mexico. And, of course, there was the clear danger of starting a nuclear arms race.

Within a month of that first, successful test, two atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some scientists had suggested that the bomb simply be demonstrated, rather than dropped on Japanese cities—saying that this would greatly improve the chances for arms control after the war—but to no avail. With the tragedy of Pearl Harbor still fresh in Americans' minds, it would have been very difficult for President Truman to order a demonstration of the weapons rather than use them as he did—the desire to quickly end the war and save the lives that would have been lost in any invasion of Japan was very strong. Yet the overriding truth was probably very simple: As the physicist Freeman Dyson later said, “The reason that it was dropped was just that nobody had the courage or the foresight to say no.”

It's important to realize how shocked the physicists were in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945. They describe a series of waves of emotion: first, a sense of fulfillment that the bomb worked, then horror at all the people that had been killed, and then a convincing feeling that on no account should another bomb be dropped. Yet of course another bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki, only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima.

In November 1945, three months after the atomic bombings, Oppenheimer stood firmly behind the scientific attitude, saying, “It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity, and that you are using it to help in the spread of knowledge and are willing to take the consequences.”

Oppenheimer went on to work, with others, on the Acheson-Lilienthal report, which, as Richard Rhodes says in his recent book Visions of Technology , “found a way to prevent a clandestine nuclear arms race without resorting to armed world government”; their suggestion was a form of relinquishment of nuclear weapons work by nation-states to an international agency.

This proposal led to the Baruch Plan, which was submitted to the United Nations in June 1946 but never adopted (perhaps because, as Rhodes suggests, Bernard Baruch had “insisted on burdening the plan with conventional sanctions,” thereby inevitably dooming it, even though it would “almost certainly have been rejected by Stalinist Russia anyway”). Other efforts to promote sensible steps toward internationalizing nuclear power to prevent an arms race ran afoul either of US politics and internal distrust, or distrust by the Soviets. The opportunity to avoid the arms race was lost, and very quickly.

Two years later, in 1948, Oppenheimer seemed to have reached another stage in his thinking, saying, “In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge they cannot lose.”

In 1949, the Soviets exploded an atom bomb. By 1955, both the US and the Soviet Union had tested hydrogen bombs suitable for delivery by aircraft. And so the nuclear arms race began.

Nearly 20 years ago, in the documentary The Day After Trinity , Freeman Dyson summarized the scientific attitudes that brought us to the nuclear precipice:

“I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles—this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds.” 8

Now, as then, we are creators of new technologies and stars of the imagined future, driven—this time by great financial rewards and global competition—despite the clear dangers, hardly evaluating what it may be like to try to live in a world that is the realistic outcome of what we are creating and imagining.

In 1947, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists began putting a Doomsday Clock on its cover. For more than 50 years, it has shown an estimate of the relative nuclear danger we have faced, reflecting the changing international conditions. The hands on the clock have moved 15 times and today, standing at nine minutes to midnight, reflect continuing and real danger from nuclear weapons. The recent addition of India and Pakistan to the list of nuclear powers has increased the threat of failure of the nonproliferation goal, and this danger was reflected by moving the hands closer to midnight in 1998.

In our time, how much danger do we face, not just from nuclear weapons, but from all of these technologies? How high are the extinction risks?

The philosopher John Leslie has studied this question and concluded that the risk of human extinction is at least 30 percent, while Ray Kurzweil believes we have “a better than even chance of making it through,” with the caveat that he has “always been accused of being an optimist.” 9 Not only are these estimates not encouraging, but they do not include the probability of many horrid outcomes that lie short of extinction.

Faced with such assessments, some serious people are already suggesting that we simply move beyond Earth as quickly as possible. We would colonize the galaxy using von Neumann probes, which hop from star system to star system, replicating as they go. This step will almost certainly be necessary 5 billion years from now (or sooner if our solar system is disastrously impacted by the impending collision of our galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy within the next 3 billion years), but if we take Kurzweil and Moravec at their word it might be necessary by the middle of this century.

What are the moral implications here? If we must move beyond Earth this quickly in order for the species to survive, who accepts the responsibility for the fate of those (most of us, after all) who are left behind? And even if we scatter to the stars, isn't it likely that we may take our problems with us or find, later, that they have followed us? The fate of our species on Earth and our fate in the galaxy seem inextricably linked.

Another idea is to erect a series of shields to defend against each of the dangerous technologies. The Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed by the Reagan administration, was an attempt to design such a shield against the threat of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. But as Arthur C. Clarke, who was privy to discussions about the project, observed: “Though it might be possible, at vast expense, to construct local defense systems that would 'only' let through a few percent of ballistic missiles, the much touted idea of a national umbrella was nonsense. Luis Alvarez, perhaps the greatest experimental physicist of this century, remarked to me that the advocates of such schemes were ‘very bright guys with no common sense.’”

Clarke continued: “Looking into my often cloudy crystal ball, I suspect that a total defense might indeed be possible in a century or so. But the technology involved would produce, as a by-product, weapons so terrible that no one would bother with anything as primitive as ballistic missiles.” 10

In Engines of Creation , Eric Drexler proposed that we build an active nanotechnological shield—a form of immune system for the biosphere—to defend against dangerous replicators of all kinds that might escape from laboratories or otherwise be maliciously created. But the shield he proposed would itself be extremely dangerous—nothing could prevent it from developing autoimmune problems and attacking the biosphere itself. 11

Similar difficulties apply to the construction of shields against robotics and genetic engineering. These technologies are too powerful to be shielded against in the time frame of interest; even if it were possible to implement defensive shields, the side effects of their development would be at least as dangerous as the technologies we are trying to protect against.

These possibilities are all thus either undesirable or unachievable or both. The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.

Yes, I know, knowledge is good, as is the search for new truths. We have been seeking knowledge since ancient times. Aristotle opened his Metaphysics with the simple statement: “All men by nature desire to know.” We have, as a bedrock value in our society, long agreed on the value of open access to information, and recognize the problems that arise with attempts to restrict access to and development of knowledge. In recent times, we have come to revere scientific knowledge.

But despite the strong historical precedents, if open access to and unlimited development of knowledge henceforth puts us all in clear danger of extinction, then common sense demands that we reexamine even these basic, long-held beliefs.

It was Nietzsche who warned us, at the end of the 19th century, not only that God is dead but that “faith in science, which after all exists undeniably, cannot owe its origin to a calculus of utility; it must have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility and dangerousness of the 'will to truth,' of 'truth at any price' is proved to it constantly.” It is this further danger that we now fully face—the consequences of our truth-seeking. The truth that science seeks can certainly be considered a dangerous substitute for God if it is likely to lead to our extinction.

If we could agree, as a species, what we wanted, where we were headed, and why, then we would make our future much less dangerous—then we might understand what we can and should relinquish. Otherwise, we can easily imagine an arms race developing over GNR technologies, as it did with the NBC technologies in the 20th century. This is perhaps the greatest risk, for once such a race begins, it's very hard to end it. This time—unlike during the Manhattan Project—we aren't in a war, facing an implacable enemy that is threatening our civilization; we are driven, instead, by our habits, our desires, our economic system, and our competitive need to know.

I believe that we all wish our course could be determined by our collective values, ethics, and morals. If we had gained more collective wisdom over the past few thousand years, then a dialogue to this end would be more practical, and the incredible powers we are about to unleash would not be nearly so troubling.

One would think we might be driven to such a dialogue by our instinct for self-preservation. Individuals clearly have this desire, yet as a species our behavior seems to be not in our favor. In dealing with the nuclear threat, we often spoke dishonestly to ourselves and to each other, thereby greatly increasing the risks. Whether this was politically motivated, or because we chose not to think ahead, or because when faced with such grave threats we acted irrationally out of fear, I do not know, but it does not bode well.

The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed. Ideas can't be put back in a box; unlike uranium or plutonium, they don't need to be mined and refined, and they can be freely copied. Once they are out, they are out. Churchill remarked, in a famous left-handed compliment, that the American people and their leaders “invariably do the right thing, after they have examined every other alternative.” In this case, however, we must act more presciently, as to do the right thing only at last may be to lose the chance to do it at all.

As Thoreau said, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us”; and this is what we must fight, in our time. The question is, indeed, Which is to be master? Will we survive our technologies?

We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. Have we already gone too far down the path to alter course? I don't believe so, but we aren't trying yet, and the last chance to assert control—the fail-safe point—is rapidly approaching. We have our first pet robots, as well as commercially available genetic engineering techniques, and our nanoscale techniques are advancing rapidly. While the development of these technologies proceeds through a number of steps, it isn't necessarily the case—as happened in the Manhattan Project and the Trinity test—that the last step in proving a technology is large and hard. The breakthrough to wild self-replication in robotics, genetic engineering, or nanotechnology could come suddenly, reprising the surprise we felt when we learned of the cloning of a mammal.

And yet I believe we do have a strong and solid basis for hope. Our attempts to deal with weapons of mass destruction in the last century provide a shining example of relinquishment for us to consider: the unilateral US abandonment, without preconditions, of the development of biological weapons. This relinquishment stemmed from the realization that while it would take an enormous effort to create these terrible weapons, they could from then on easily be duplicated and fall into the hands of rogue nations or terrorist groups.

The clear conclusion was that we would create additional threats to ourselves by pursuing these weapons, and that we would be more secure if we did not pursue them. We have embodied our relinquishment of biological and chemical weapons in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). 12

As for the continuing sizable threat from nuclear weapons, which we have lived with now for more than 50 years, the US Senate's recent rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty makes it clear relinquishing nuclear weapons will not be politically easy. But we have a unique opportunity, with the end of the Cold War, to avert a multipolar arms race. Building on the BWC and CWC relinquishments, successful abolition of nuclear weapons could help us build toward a habit of relinquishing dangerous technologies. (Actually, by getting rid of all but 100 nuclear weapons worldwide—roughly the total destructive power of World War II and a considerably easier task—we could eliminate this extinction threat. 13

Verifying relinquishment will be a difficult problem, but not an unsolvable one. We are fortunate to have already done a lot of relevant work in the context of the BWC and other treaties. Our major task will be to apply this to technologies that are naturally much more commercial than military. The substantial need here is for transparency, as difficulty of verification is directly proportional to the difficulty of distinguishing relinquished from legitimate activities.

I frankly believe that the situation in 1945 was simpler than the one we now face: The nuclear technologies were reasonably separable into commercial and military uses, and monitoring was aided by the nature of atomic tests and the ease with which radioactivity could be measured. Research on military applications could be performed at national laboratories such as Los Alamos, with the results kept secret as long as possible.

The GNR technologies do not divide clearly into commercial and military uses; given their potential in the market, it's hard to imagine pursuing them only in national laboratories. With their widespread commercial pursuit, enforcing relinquishment will require a verification regime similar to that for biological weapons, but on an unprecedented scale. This, inevitably, will raise tensions between our individual privacy and desire for proprietary information, and the need for verification to protect us all. We will undoubtedly encounter strong resistance to this loss of privacy and freedom of action.

Verifying the relinquishment of certain GNR technologies will have to occur in cyberspace as well as at physical facilities. The critical issue will be to make the necessary transparency acceptable in a world of proprietary information, presumably by providing new forms of protection for intellectual property.

Verifying compliance will also require that scientists and engineers adopt a strong code of ethical conduct, resembling the Hippocratic oath, and that they have the courage to whistleblow as necessary, even at high personal cost. This would answer the call—50 years after Hiroshima—by the Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, one of the most senior of the surviving members of the Manhattan Project, that all scientists “cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving, and manufacturing nuclear weapons and other weapons of potential mass destruction.” 14  In the 21st century, this requires vigilance and personal responsibility by those who would work on both NBC and GNR technologies to avoid implementing weapons of mass destruction and knowledge-enabled mass destruction.

Thoreau also said that we will be “rich in proportion to the number of things which we can afford to let alone.” We each seek to be happy, but it would seem worthwhile to question whether we need to take such a high risk of total destruction to gain yet more knowledge and yet more things; common sense says that there is a limit to our material needs—and that certain knowledge is too dangerous and is best forgone.

Neither should we pursue near immortality without considering the costs, without considering the commensurate increase in the risk of extinction. Immortality, while perhaps the original, is certainly not the only possible utopian dream.

I recently had the good fortune to meet the distinguished author and scholar Jacques Attali, whose book Lignes d'horizons ( Millennium , in the English translation) helped inspire the Java and Jini approach to the coming age of pervasive computing, as previously described in this magazine. In his new book Fraternités , Attali describes how our dreams of utopia have changed over time:

“At the dawn of societies, men saw their passage on Earth as nothing more than a labyrinth of pain, at the end of which stood a door leading, via their death, to the company of gods and to Eternity . With the Hebrews and then the Greeks, some men dared free themselves from theological demands and dream of an ideal City where Liberty would flourish. Others, noting the evolution of the market society, understood that the liberty of some would entail the alienation of others, and they sought Equality .”

Jacques helped me understand how these three different utopian goals exist in tension in our society today. He goes on to describe a fourth utopia, Fraternity , whose foundation is altruism. Fraternity alone associates individual happiness with the happiness of others, affording the promise of self-sustainment.

This crystallized for me my problem with Kurzweil's dream. A technological approach to Eternity—near immortality through robotics—may not be the most desirable utopia, and its pursuit brings clear dangers. Maybe we should rethink our utopian choices.

Where can we look for a new ethical basis to set our course? I have found the ideas in the book Ethics for the New Millennium , by the Dalai Lama, to be very helpful. As is perhaps well known but little heeded, the Dalai Lama argues that the most important thing is for us to conduct our lives with love and compassion for others, and that our societies need to develop a stronger notion of universal responsibility and of our interdependency; he proposes a standard of positive ethical conduct for individuals and societies that seems consonant with Attali's Fraternity utopia.

The Dalai Lama further argues that we must understand what it is that makes people happy, and acknowledge the strong evidence that neither material progress nor the pursuit of the power of knowledge is the key—that there are limits to what science and the scientific pursuit alone can do.

Our Western notion of happiness seems to come from the Greeks, who defined it as “the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope.” 15

Clearly, we need to find meaningful challenges and sufficient scope in our lives if we are to be happy in whatever is to come. But I believe we must find alternative outlets for our creative forces, beyond the culture of perpetual economic growth; this growth has largely been a blessing for several hundred years, but it has not brought us unalloyed happiness, and we must now choose between the pursuit of unrestricted and undirected growth through science and technology and the clear accompanying dangers.

It is now more than a year since my first encounter with Ray Kurzweil and John Searle. I see around me cause for hope in the voices for caution and relinquishment and in those people I have discovered who are as concerned as I am about our current predicament. I feel, too, a deepened sense of personal responsibility—not for the work I have already done, but for the work that I might yet do, at the confluence of the sciences.

But many other people who know about the dangers still seem strangely silent. When pressed, they trot out the “this is nothing new” riposte—as if awareness of what could happen is response enough. They tell me, There are universities filled with bioethicists who study this stuff all day long. They say, All this has been written about before, and by experts. They complain, Your worries and your arguments are already old hat.

I don't know where these people hide their fear. As an architect of complex systems I enter this arena as a generalist. But should this diminish my concerns? I am aware of how much has been written about, talked about, and lectured about so authoritatively. But does this mean it has reached people? Does this mean we can discount the dangers before us?

Knowing is not a rationale for not acting. Can we doubt that knowledge has become a weapon we wield against ourselves?

The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.

My continuing professional work is on improving the reliability of software. Software is a tool, and as a toolbuilder I must struggle with the uses to which the tools I make are put. I have always believed that making software more reliable, given its many uses, will make the world a safer and better place; if I were to come to believe the opposite, then I would be morally obligated to stop this work. I can now imagine such a day may come.

This all leaves me not angry but at least a bit melancholic. Henceforth, for me, progress will be somewhat bittersweet.

Do you remember the beautiful penultimate scene in Manhattan where Woody Allen is lying on his couch and talking into a tape recorder? He is writing a short story about people who are creating unnecessary, neurotic problems for themselves, because it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about the universe.

He leads himself to the question, “Why is life worth living?” and to consider what makes it worthwhile for him: Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, Louis Armstrong's recording of “Potato Head Blues,” Swedish movies, Flaubert's Sentimental Education, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, the apples and pears by Cézanne, the crabs at Sam Wo's, and, finally, the showstopper: his love Tracy's face.

Each of us has our precious things, and as we care for them we locate the essence of our humanity. In the end, it is because of our great capacity for caring that I remain optimistic we will confront the dangerous issues now before us.

My immediate hope is to participate in a much larger discussion of the issues raised here, with people from many different backgrounds, in settings not predisposed to fear or favor technology for its own sake.

As a start, I have twice raised many of these issues at events sponsored by the Aspen Institute and have separately proposed that the American Academy of Arts and Sciences take them up as an extension of its work with the Pugwash Conferences. (These have been held since 1957 to discuss arms control, especially of nuclear weapons, and to formulate workable policies.)

It's unfortunate that the Pugwash meetings started only well after the nuclear genie was out of the bottle—roughly 15 years too late. We are also getting a belated start on seriously addressing the issues around 21st-century technologies—the prevention of knowledge-enabled mass destruction—and further delay seems unacceptable.

So I'm still searching; there are many more things to learn. Whether we are to succeed or fail, to survive or fall victim to these technologies, is not yet decided. I'm up late again—it's almost 6 am. I'm trying to imagine some better answers, to break the spell and free them from the stone.

• The passage Kurzweil quotes is from Kaczynski's Unabomber Manifesto, which was published jointly, under duress, by The New York Times and The Washington Post to attempt to bring his campaign of terror to an end. I agree with David Gelernter, who said about their decision: “It was a tough call for the newspapers. To say yes would be giving in to terrorism, and for all they knew he was lying anyway. On the other hand, to say yes might stop the killing. There was also a chance that someone would read the tract and get a hunch about the author; and that is exactly what happened. The suspect's brother read it, and it rang a bell. “I would have told them not to publish. I'm glad they didn't ask me. I guess.” ( Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber . Free Press, 1997: 120.)  
• Garrett, Laurie. The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance . Penguin, 1994: 47-52, 414, 419, 452.  
• Isaac Asimov described what became the most famous view of ethical rules for robot behavior in his book I, Robot in 1950, in his Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.  
• Michelangelo wrote a sonnet that begins: Non ha l' ottimo artista alcun concetto Ch' un marmo solo in sè non circonscriva Col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva La man che ubbidisce all' intelleto . Stone translates this as: The best of artists hath no thought to show which the rough stone in its superfluous shell doth not include; to break the marble spell is all the hand that serves the brain can do . Stone describes the process: “He was not working from his drawings or clay models; they had all been put away. He was carving from the images in his mind. His eyes and hands knew where every line, curve, mass must emerge, and at what depth in the heart of the stone to create the low relief.” ( The Agony and the Ecstasy . Doubleday, 1961: 6, 144.)  
• First Foresight Conference on Nanotechnology in October 1989, a talk titled “The Future of Computation.” Published in Crandall, B. C. and James Lewis, editors. Nanotechnology: Research and Perspectives . MIT Press, 1992: 269.  
• In his 1963 novel Cat's Cradle , Kurt Vonnegut imagined a gray-goo-like accident where a form of ice called ice-nine, which becomes solid at a much higher temperature, freezes the oceans.  
• Kauffman, Stuart. “Self-replication: Even Peptides Do It.” Nature, 382, August 8, 1996: 496.   
• Else, Jon. The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and The Atomic Bomb.  
• This estimate is in Leslie's book The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction , where he notes that the probability of extinction is substantially higher if we accept Brandon Carter's Doomsday Argument, which is, briefly, that “we ought to have some reluctance to believe that we are very exceptionally early, for instance in the earliest 0.001 percent, among all humans who will ever have lived. This would be some reason for thinking that humankind will not survive for many more centuries, let alone colonize the galaxy. Carter's doomsday argument doesn't generate any risk estimates just by itself. It is an argument for revising the estimates which we generate when we consider various possible dangers.” (Routledge, 1996: 1, 3, 145.)  
• Clarke, Arthur C. “Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids.” Science , June 5, 1998. Reprinted as “Science and Society” in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! Collected Essays, 1934-1998 . St. Martin's Press, 1999: 526.  
• And, as David Forrest suggests in his paper “Regulating Nanotechnology Development,” “If we used strict liability as an alternative to regulation it would be impossible for any developer to internalize the cost of the risk (destruction of the biosphere), so theoretically the activity of developing nanotechnology should never be undertaken.” Forrest's analysis leaves us with only government regulation to protect us—not a comforting thought.  
• Meselson, Matthew. “The Problem of Biological Weapons.” Presentation to the 1,818th Stated Meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, January 13, 1999.  
• Doty, Paul. “The Forgotten Menace: Nuclear Weapons Stockpiles Still Represent the Biggest Threat to Civilization.” Nature , 402, December 9, 1999: 583.  
• See also Hans Bethe's 1997 letter to President Clinton.  
• Hamilton, Edith. The Greek Way . W. W. Norton & Co., 1942: 35.

Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, was cochair of the presidential commission on the future of IT research, and is coauthor of The Java Language Specification. His work on the Jini pervasive computing technology was featured in Wired 6.08 .

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• v.12(3); 2022 Mar

Nano-biotechnology, an applicable approach for sustainable future

Nikta shahcheraghi.

1 Department of Engineering, University of Science and Culture, Tehran, Iran

Hasti Golchin

2 Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi University, No.43.South Moffateh Ave., 15719-14911 Tehran, Iran

Zahra Sadri

Yasaman tabari.

3 Faculty of Sciences and Advanced Technologies, Science and Culture University, 1461968151 Tehran, Iran

Forough Borhanifar

Shadi makani.

Nanotechnology is one of the most emerging fields of research within recent decades and is based upon the exploitation of nano-sized materials (e.g., nanoparticles, nanotubes, nanomembranes, nanowires, nanofibers and so on) in various operational fields. Nanomaterials have multiple advantages, including high stability, target selectivity, and plasticity. Diverse biotic (e.g., Capsid of viruses and algae) and abiotic (e.g., Carbon, silver, gold and etc.) materials can be utilized in the synthesis process of nanomaterials. “Nanobiotechnology” is the combination of nanotechnology and biotechnology disciplines. Nano-based approaches are developed to improve the traditional biotechnological methods and overcome their limitations, such as the side effects caused by conventional therapies. Several studies have reported that nanobiotechnology has remarkably enhanced the efficiency of various techniques, including drug delivery, water and soil remediation, and enzymatic processes. In this review, techniques that benefit the most from nano-biotechnological approaches, are categorized into four major fields: medical, industrial, agricultural, and environmental.

Introduction

The development process of a sustainable future generally consists of methods that ensure the satisfaction of future needs, while fulfills the current generation’s requirements (Raghav et al. 2020 ). To obtain a proper overview of upcoming demands in the future, it is important to anticipate future stressors (e.g., climate change) (Iwaniec et al. 2020 ). Since nanotechnology is applicable in various majors, it is expected that nano-based techniques will take a key role in a sustainable future (Raghav et al. 2020 ), along with making substantial impacts on the universal economic situation due to their wide range of applications in variant industries (Adam and Youssef 2019 ). The unification of diverse fields in science, Inspired by the oneness of nature, is one of the most noticeable subject matters now in the early twenty-first century. Merging four massively operational fields of science has received great attention in recent decades: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive sciences (NBIC), which are known as “convergent technologies” (Roco and Bainbridge 2013 ). Non-renewable sources don’t seem efficient for providing large amounts of energy required in various industrial technologies. Convergent technologies are considered as a remedy for this issue. For instance, several nano-based technologies, which consume biological-renewable energy sources, have been introduced (Zhironkin et al. 2019 ). The unification of material on nanoscale makes the mentioned combination of multiple technologies possible. Hence, nanotechnology plays a critical role in NBIC advancement (Roco and Bainbridge 2013 ). According to the definition set by National Nanotechnology Initiatives in 1999, Nanotechnology is an advanced area of research that allows for the production of a wide class of materials in the nanoscale range (less than 100 nm) to make use of size-and structure-dependent properties and phenomena (Luo et al. 2020 ). Although “nano” is defined as that which is less than 100 nm in size, the use of this definition in the biomedical field is less strict and instead may encompass particles up to 1000 nm in size (Landowski et al. 2020 ). Nanotechnology has a wide range of applications, including Agricultural usages (Ndlovu et al. 2020 ), biofuel production (Zahed et al. 2021a ), cancer Immunotherapy (Goracci et al. 2020 ), carbon capture (Zahed et al. 2021b ) and biomarker detection like nanobiochips, nanoelectrodes, or nanobiosensors (Bayda et al. 2020 ). Nanomaterials (NMs) are chemical substances or materials that are manufactured and used at a very small scale, i.e., 1–100 nm in at least one dimension. NMs are categorized according to their dimensionality, morphology, state, and chemical composition (Saleh 2020 ). NMs can be used for rapid extraction of RNA of the novel coronavirus (Kailasa et al. 2021 ). Expanding nanoscience through various branches can eventually enhance the intelligence and capability of individuals, solve various social issues, cure numerous diseases, and generally improve the quality of mankind's life in the long term (Roco and Bainbridge 2013 ). Deploying nanotechnology into biotechnology will help the commercialization process of nano-based techniques and make them more practical in the industry (Maine et al. 2014 ). The idea of developing interdisciplinary research (IDR) (Jang et al. 2018 ) in science presents a promising landscape of the future, in which human intelligence has reached such high levels that the term “superhuman” would be more proper for humankind. According to the Israeli philosopher Harari, with the appearance of a highly technologically advanced society, only individuals with great intelligence and technological advancements can survive through natural selection in society. He states that superhumans will be produced by society eventually, considering the logic of social Darwinism, and this will be a remarkable phenomenon of the twenty-first century (Mantatov et al. 2019 ). One massive application of nanobiotechnology is enhancing the efficiency of various therapies (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). The application of nanobiotechnology in delivering chemical drugs or gene modifying agents to their target cells will increase the efficiency of the treatments and reduce the side effects remarkably. Within the previous two decades, RNA-based therapeutic methods, including messenger RNA (mRNA), microRNA, and small interfering RNA (siRNA), have been supremely developed. These therapeutic approaches are expected to be operative in the treatment and prevention of various diseases, such as cancers, genetic disorders, diabetes, inflammatory diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases (Lin et al. 2020 ). In the case of cancers, conventional therapies (surgery, chemotherapy, and irradiation) may cause severe side effects to patients, plus they are often inefficient for disease treatment (Hager et al. 2020 ). Loading anti-cancer drugs into nanomaterials provides a nano-based drug delivery system that detracts the side effects. Platinum (Pt) compounds are one of the most common anti-cancer drugs since 1978. Pt drugs directly aim at the DNA of the targeted cells, thus covering up the defects of the malformed DNA repair mechanisms in cancerous cells. Encapsulating Pt drugs into liposomes constructs a nano-based drug delivery system for treating cancers (Rottenberg et al. 2021 ). Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are advantageous options for cancer treatment and diagnosis. AuNPs are created in the size range between 1 and 150 nm and in various shapes, including nanorods (AuNRs), nanocages, nanostars, and nanoshells (AuNSs). AuNPs consist of high rates of biocapability and exhibit controlled patterns of medicine release in the drug delivery process. AuNPs consist of conduction electrons on their surfaces which get excited by certain wavelengths of light. This feature enables AuNPs to adsorb light and produce heat that is fatal to cells. Destroying the cancerous cells with the heat released under irradiation is called photothermal therapy (PTT) or photodynamic therapy (PDT) (D’Acunto et al. 2021 ).

Medical applications of nanobiotechnology

On the other hand, RNA-based therapies can regulate the expression of immune-relevant genes, therefore increasing anti-tumor immune responses directly. Several nanomaterials have been introduced that can deliver nucleic acid therapeutics to tumors and immune cells (Lin et al. 2020 ). There are biomimetic strategies for providing a co-delivery system that is capable of supporting both chemical and RNA-based therapies (Liu et al. 2019 ). Considering RNAs as therapeutic agents or drug targets requires precise knowledge about the 3D structure of specific RNAs. There are reliable algorithms for pronging the second structure of RNAs, but the tertiary architecture which determines the RNA’s functions is quite challenging to anticipate. Bioinformatics provides several methods for predicting the tertiary structures of RNAs such as Vfold, iFoldRNA, 3DRNA, and RNAComposer. They all face particular hurdles, but it should be noted that the field of computational RNA structure anticipation, has a bright future (Biesiada et al. 2016 ). RNA-based vaccines are quite impressive immunotherapeutic tools in cancer therapies. However, the in vivo delivery of synthesized mRNAs could face some obstacles. Encrusting mRNAs with a lipid-polyethylene glycol (lipid-PEG) shell increases the mRNA delivery rate up to 95% more than the conventional nanoparticle-free mRNA vaccines (Islam et al. 2021 ).

In RNA-based nano-techniques, utilizing large-sized RNAs faces several difficulties. Wang et al. have reported an interesting method of using gold nanoparticles (enriched by expanded genetic alphabet transcriptions) to increase the effectiveness of detecting the large natural or artificially synthesized RNAs through an RNA nano-based labeling technique. These techniques are highly dependent on the conjugation between nanoparticles and RNAs (Wang et al. 2020 ). Since gene sequencing is of great importance, multiple biotechnology-based diagnostic tools, including quantitative PCR, DNA barcoding, next-generation sequencing, and imaging techniques are commonly currently used. These methods are considered economically advantageous, along with providing a reliable diagnosis. Incorporating nano-based sensors with mentioned tools increases the sensitivity and spatiotemporal resolution, which are two fundamental features of the gene sequencing process (Kumar et al. 2020 ). Designing nano-based devices for diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV 2) has been promoted recently. Nanomaterials such as gold nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, and graphene (G) significantly increase the accuracy and decrease the required time and costs. Hence, render beneficial tools for viral detection more effective compared to the traditional techniques. Nanoparticles are specified via anti-bodies to identify particular antigens on the surface of the virus. Suspected samples from the patient, air, and surface can get examined by nano-based serological or molecular diagnosis methods (Abdelhamid and Badr 2021 ).

Nanomaterials can be utilized in the form of membranes. Chemically or physically synthesized nanomembranes remarkably advance the conventional water purification techniques (Lohrasebi and Koslowski 2019 ; Kim et al. 2020 ). Incorporating nanomembranes with bioreactors is the basis of the membrane bioreactor (MBR) technique, which is exploited in wastewater reclamation (Ma et al. 2018 ). Eliminating pollutant components from the environment is one of the main purposes of nanobiotechnology (Table ​ (Table2). 2 ). In the agricultural fields, nano-bio technologically modified pesticides and fertilizers notably prevent crop loss. Nano-based bioremediation processes have been developed to reduce soil pollutions and are expected to improve both environmental and agricultural approaches (Usman et al. 2020 ). Several studies are expanding the idea of producing nano plants that show better biological performances (e.g., photosynthesis) compared to natural plants (Marchiol 2018 ) (Table ​ (Table3). 3 ). Enzymes empowered by nanomaterials have rendered higher recovery and productivity rates and thus are potentially able to act spotless in different industrial techniques (Adeel et al. 2018 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ) (Table ​ (Table4 4 ).

Environmental applications of nanobiotechnology

Agricultural applications of nanobiotechnology

Industrial applications of nanobiotechnology

The objective of this study is to review the applications of nanoscience in enhancing the efficiency of biotechnological methods (Fig.  1 ).

Diverse Applications of Nanobiotechnology: multiple techniques, including Drug delivery-based therapies, remediating processes, and industrial nano-bio catalysts benefit from nano-scaled particles

Application of nano-based materials for drug delivery, therapeutic and diagnostic processes

One recently promoted technique in the gene therapy field is the application of the CRISPR/Cas9 systems, which has been indicated to be highly effective in the treatment of monogenic disorders, non-monogenic disorders, and infectious diseases. Emerging studies have suggested that nanocarriers, which are created from Polymer polyethyleneimine (PEI), are more efficient in delivering CRISPR/Cas9 systems to targeted cells compared to the viral carriers (Deng et al. 2019 ). Gene mutation-related diseases such as cancers and human immunodeficiency viruses are potentially treated by DNA-based vaccines. This type of vaccine enhances disease symptoms by delivering specific gene sequences-which are embedded in plasmids- to targeted cells. Despite having clinical utilization, DNA vaccines face limitations in delivering their genetic cargos to the target cells. Designing efficient nano-delivery systems will eliminate such deficiencies PEI (Lim et al. 2020 ). Virus-like nanoparticles (Jeevanandam et al. 2019 ) seem to form applicable nanocarriers for this purpose (Fig.  2 ).

Encapsulating therapeutic agents within nanoparticles: embedding medicine or gene-modifying agents into the nanoparticles remarkably enhances the therapeutic efficiency along with diminishing potential side effects

Nanomaterials used in cancer diagnosis can be mainly divided into contrasting agents (magnetic, iron oxide and gold nanoparticles) and fluorescent agents (quantum dots). Some nanocarriers have inherent optical properties (such as carbon nanotubes, gold and magnetic nanoparticles) that can be converted into high energy to cells for destruction and can serve as nanotheranostics (Barani et al. 2021 ).

Nanomaterials used in smart drug delivery-based cancer therapies are categorized as organic and inorganic materials. Micelles, vesicles, multilamellar liposomes, and solid lipid nanoparticles are some examples of self-assembled organic nanomaterials. Other organic materials are not capable of self-assembling and need to be synthesized, such as nanotubes and dendrimers. Gold nanoparticles, quantum dots, mesoporous silica nanoparticles, and superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are classified as inorganic nanomaterials (Lombardo et al. 2019 ). SPIONs are vastly utilized in therapeutic approaches, including cancer therapy, radiation therapy, and tissue engineering. SPIONs are synthesized through different physical, chemical, and biological methods. Bacteria and plants are the biomaterials upon which the biological method is based (Samrot et al. 2020 ). Nanoparticles containing both organic and inorganic materials (hybrid nanoparticles) have been indicated to be highly efficient, as well (Lombardo et al. 2019 ). Embedding targeting ligands (e.g., antibodies, peptides, aptamers, and small molecules) on the surface of nanoparticles assures the delivery of medicines to specific sites in the body, such as tumor tissues. The mentioned process is called: “targeted drug delivery system” (Doroudian et al. 2021 ). There are two types of targeting delivery: passive targeting and active targeting. In the passive form, the high aggregations of medicines at the tumor sites are related to the nano-scaled size of the nanocarriers. The tight junctions between epithelial cells of the vessel tissues prevent the nanoparticles from exiting the vessel. The cancerous cells loosen the tight junctions of the adjacent vessels. Therefore, nanocarriers can pass through the vessel and get into the tumor site. The targeting ligands incorporated with nanoparticles are not responsible for the passive targeting action. The binding between the targeting ligands and the particular receptors on the cancerous cells-which are exclusively found on the surface of the tumor cells- causes a more precise drug delivery, which is known as active targeting (Doroudian et al. 2019 ). Although drug-loaded nanoparticles efficiently carry the medicines to target cites, according to the in-vivo studies, these nanoparticles might not be quite biodegradable. Hence using such nanoparticles could lead to toxicities and side effects. It is worth mentioning that Zhou et al. have developed biodegradable nanoparticles using poly (aspartic acid) (PASP) microtube, a thin Fe intermediate layer, and a core of Zn (Zhou et al. 2019 ).

Nano-based drug delivery systems provide highly promising prospects for treating neurodegenerative disorders. It is reasonable to assume that treating neurological diseases by conventional drug delivery systems is extremely challenging due to the presence of the blood–brain barrier (BBB). The blood–brain barrier prevents the entrance of therapeutical agents to the central nervous system (CNS), therefore, making the conventional therapies inadequate. The blood–brain barrier provides a stable environment for the CNS and regulates the cell-to-cell interactions, which take place in the CNS. The dysfunction of the blood–brain barrier leads to severe neurodegenerative disorders (e.g., Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and multiple sclerosis (MS)). The blood–brain barrier is responsible for the proper functioning of the CNS, so naturally, it has a super-sensitive permeability. This feature of the blood–brain barrier is highly related to the tight junctions between the barrier’s cells. Only 1–4 percent of most CNS medicines succeed in passing the blood–brain barrier. Nanoparticles are more likely to pass the barrier because of their nano-scaled size. Encapsulating drugs in nanoparticles can significantly increase the drug transmission rate through the blood–brain barrier (Furtado et al. 2018 ). For instance, graphene, metals, carbon-nanotubes, and metal-oxides are the nanomaterials that can get exploited in the treatment procedure of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is caused by different genetic and environmental cues. Chemical and electrical malformations are observed in the brain of an AD patient. Acrine and physostigmine, which are conventional medicines for AD, have been proved to stimuli severe effects on the gastrointestinal tract and nervous system. Therefore, attention is drawn to nano-based therapies (Nawaz et al. 2021 ). Marcos-Contreras et al. have proposed that the augmentation of VCAM-1 ligands to the drug-loaded nanocarriers can significantly improve the cerebral accumulation rate of nanoparticles in inflamed brains (Marcos-Contreras et al. 2020 ) (Fig.  3 ).

Nano-based drug delivery in the therapies of neurodegenerative disorders: blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a noticeable obstacle for conventional medicines; however, drugs encapsulated within nanoparticles efficiently penetrate through the BBB and reach the central nervous system (CNS)

Although nano-based medications of neurodegenerative disorders seem spotless theoretically, the internal environment of the body puts out several obstacles on the path of the medicine nano-delivering. For instance, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) may safely carry their therapeutic cargos to the targeted cells, but if the drug needs to reach the cytoplasm, lipid nanoparticles are not capable of efficiently crossing the cell membrane. Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are delivered to hepatocytes via lipid nanoparticles, but only 2% of them accomplish reaching to the cytoplasm. It should be mentioned that big data and computational methods can help scientists to predict the in-vivo challenges of nano-drug delivery to design proper techniques to overcome them (Paunovska et al. 2019 ). Besides, bioinformatics provides tools for measuring the interaction rate between exploited nanomaterials and drug targets (Nawaz et al. 2021 ). Designing efficient nanomaterials is fundamental for nanotechnological approaches. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene-based nanomaterials have been vastly utilized in nanotechnology during the last two decades (Kinloch et al. 2018 ). As a case in point, Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are considered as excellent options for designing nano-based biomedical approaches, including but not limited to drug delivery systems. The most noticeable features of SWCNTs are their great photophysical properties (Farrera et al. 2017 ). Even though Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene-based nanomaterials have unique qualities such as high flexibility, they face some challenges in their load transfer capability, dispersion, and viscosity. Hence, creating more applicable and eco-friendly nanomaterials has drawn intense attention (Kinloch et al. 2018 ). AlNadhari et al. have introduced algae as a green and eco-friendly source of materials that can be used in nanoparticles. Algae-based nanoparticles in the biomedical field consist of therapeutical characteristics, such as antibacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-cancer features (AlNadhari et al. 2021 ). Milk-derived proteins such as β-lactoglobulin (β-LG), lactoferrin (LF), and the caseins (CN) are other biological alternatives for synthesizing nanocarriers. Anti-cancer medicines have been embedded into protein-based nanocarriers and successfully deteriorated cancerous tumors (Tavakoli et al. 2021 ). Azarakhsh et al. have demonstrated specific binding sites for the anti-cancer drug, Oxali-palladium (OX) and iron nanoparticles (NP) on the Beta-Casein (β-CN). Hence, the Beta-Casein can perform as an efficient carrier for both agents (Azarakhsh et al. 2021 ). One common strategy in designing nanocarriers for cancer therapies is to create nanoparticles that can detect the vitamin or growth factor receptors on target cells. Cancerous cells usually over-express the receptors for such nutrients so that they can keep their high proliferation rate (Peer et al. 2020 ). Reprogramming the nutrient signaling and micropinocytosis of the cancer cells seriously affects the efficacy of Nano-particulate albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel, nab-PTX); which is one of the most commonly prescribed nanomedicines (Li et al. 2021 ).

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are short-chain, often cationic, peptides possessing several attributes which make them attractive alternatives to conventional antibiotics with s a low likelihood of resistance developing in target organisms (Meikle et al. 2021 ). Conjugation and functionalization of nanoparticles with potentially active antimicrobial peptides has added advantages that widen their applications in the field of drug discovery as well as a delivery system, including imaging and diagnostics (Mohid and Bhunia 2021 ).

Silver nanoparticles coated with zinc oxide (Ag@ZnO), can stimulate proliferation and migration of human keratinocytes, HaCaT, with increased expression of Ki67 and vinculin at the leading edge of wounds. Interestingly, Ag@ZnO stimulates keratinocytes to produce the antimicrobial peptides hBD2 and RNase7, promoting antibacterial activity against both extracellular and intracellular Staphylococcus aureus isolated from wounds (Majhi et al. 2021 ).

Wound dressing is an important action against an injury. In recent years, nanotechnology has been combined with wound dressing techniques, and there are several new materials and techniques available for this action. The nanoparticles’ dimensions make them suitable for penetrating into the wound. Thus, bioactive agents and drugs can be released locally (De Luca et al. 2021 ). Numerous synthetic and natural materials have been applied for wound healing; Hyaluronic Acid, as an illustration, is one of the most-used materials (Ahire and Dicks 2016 ).

In 2017 Polyethylene Oxide (PEO)-hyaluronic acid (HA) nanofibers as an inhibitor of Listeria monocytogenes infection (Ahire et al. 2017a ). Gauze is a traditional wound dressing used to protect dermal wounds from bacterial infection. In a study in 2021, an antibacterial gauze was prepared by the combined use of antimicrobial peptides and AgNPs. The prepared antibacterial gauze showed excellent antibacterial activity against E.coli, S. enteritidis, S. aureus , and B. cereus and also exhibited good biocompatibility (Chen et al. 2021a , b ). In 2014, Ahire and Dicks introduced 2,3-Dihydroxybenzoic Acid-Containing Nanofiber as a suitable nanomaterial for wound dressing as it prevents Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection (Ahire and Dicks 2014 ). To inhibit the growth of this microorganism, Copper-Containing Anti-Biofilm Nanofiber Scaffolds can be used too. Copper-containing nanoparticles have the potential of inhibiting Escherichia coli growth either (Ahire et al. 2016 ). Surfactin-loaded nanofibers are also a great candidate to be used in wound dressings or in the coating of prosthetic devices to prevent biofilm formation and secondary infections (Ahire et al. 2017b ). In addition to nano-therapies, nano-diagnostic agents- metal nanoparticles- have been indicated to be highly applicable in the detection of viruses, including covid-19 (Fouad 2021 ). Several biotic [e.g., algae (AlNadhari et al. 2021 ) and viral capsid (Jeevanandam et al. 2019 )] and abiotic [e.g., gold, silver, graphene oxide, and zin oxide (Fouad 2021 )] nanomaterials have been reported to be applicable in biomedical processes. The combination of biotic and abiotic sources provides efficient nanomaterials as well. For example, the highly effective graphene-starch nanocomposites, are resulted from embedding graphene-based nanomaterials into the starch biopolymers (Mishra and Manral 2021 ). The delivery of therapeutics via nanoemulsions (NE) has shown striking results. Sánchez-Rubio et al. have successfully defeated deficiencies of vitamin E (e.g., hydrophobicity and low stability) by creating nanoemulsions comprising vitamin E. the sperm samples derived from the red deer’s epididymal tissue was treated with the mentioned nanoemulsions and the sperms’ viability and resistance against oxidative stress, was increased (Sánchez-Rubio et al., 2020 ). Jeong et al. have reported another growth-promoting method that elevates the maturation process of cultured cells. The mentioned technique aims to develop an extremely operational and cost-effective bioreactor that enables in-vitro maturation of heart tissue. Next-generation stage-top incubator (STI) containing nano grooves patterned PDMS diaphragm (NGPPD) was designed to boost cell maturation and myogenic differentiation. The surface of NGPPD was covered with a slim layer of gold (Au) (Jeong et al. 2021 ). Microfluidic systems are proven to have applications in biological analysis, tissue engineering, etc. Embedding nanolitre volumes into micro-sized fluidic channels is the basis of the aforementioned technique (Valencia et al. 2020 ).

Application of nanoparticles on bioreactors as contributory agents

Since wastewater reclamation is a universal challenge and plays a major role in providing clean water for many people across the world, various techniques have been developed for this purpose. Among them, the application of membrane bioreactors (MBRs) in water purification has attracted great attention recently. In the MBR technique, the conventional activated sludge (CAS) process is incorporated with a filtration process provided by a physicochemical membrane (Ma et al. 2018 ). It has been shown that treating the mentioned membrane with nanoparticles in different types of MBR techniques can significantly improve the efficiency of the process (Abass and Zhang 2020 ; Jiang et al. 2019 ). The pharmaceutical industry produces one of the most pollutant wastewaters; which contains various amounts of organic compounds, including benzene, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and heterocyclic, etc. these compounds have high Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and low degradability; which makes conventional biological treatments inefficient for treating them. However, applying O 3 , O 3 /Fe 2+ , O 3 /nZVI (nano zerovalent iron) processes in wastewater purgation has made noticeable signs of progress. Nano catalytic ozonation process (O 3 /nZVI) in a semi-batch reactor has the highest effect on advancing degradation amongst all (Malik et al. 2019 ). An experiment conducted in southern Tehran succeeded in removing the Methyl Tertio Butyl Ether (MTBE) and benzene from groundwater, using Fenton’s chemical oxidation with stabilized nano zerovalent iron particles (S-NZVI) as a catalyst. The removal efficiency of MTBE and benzene were increased to 90% and 96%, respectively, by reducing the pH of the reaction environment down to 3.2. Acidification of the environment decreased iron consumption as well (Beryani et al. 2017 ).

Nano-bioremediation

One green and cost-effective approach for treating the pollutant soils to reduce their toxicity is applying living organisms (bacteria, fungi, plants, etc.) through a process named: “bioremediation.” Integrating bioremediation with nanoparticles increases the efficiency of the process (Usman et al. 2020 ). The technology of nano-remediation is a sustainable method to reduce the contaminants of the soil by various means (Yue et al. 2021 ; Sajjadi et al. 2021 ; Lian et al. 2021 ). As an example, the reduction of Cr (VI) levels using this technology is known to be worthwhile in many aspects (Azeez et al. 2020 ; He et al. 2020 ). Chemically active nanoparticles can trigger the dechlorination/dehalogenation process in organic pollutants and neutralize them, consequently. Even the toughest pollutants are targeted in this nano-bio-based remediation method. The time needed for the purgation of highly contaminated soils will be minimized by virtue of the mentioned technique (Usman et al. 2020 ). Iron oxide nanoparticles (NP) and Fe 3 O 4 /biochar nanocomposites are vastly exploited in the synthesis of nanoparticles of nano-bioremediation (Patra Shahi et al. 2021 ). It is worth noting that nano zerovalent iron (nZVI) is an effective technology in the case of remediation that has been applied broadly in recent years due to high levels of reactivity for contaminants (Luo et al. 2021 ; Visentin et al. 2020 ; Ken and Sinha 2020 ; Hou et al. 2019 ; Zhu et al. 2019 ).

The bioremediation process can be used in water purification as well. Separating solid components from liquid waste is a necessary stage in the water remediation process. The fresh market waste may contain infectious components, which can seriously harm humans and plants. Hence, it is important to develop methods to collect, separate, and treat these adverse agents. Solid wastes in the wastewater contain high amounts of carbohydrates and proteins, and they provide matrices for the colonization of infectious organisms. Altogether, the presence of solid wastes improves the growth rate of pathogenic organisms. After solid matters got collected, they should be stored and treated immediately. The treatment process must not be delayed because the enriched environment of the solid wastes can easily get corrupted. One way to treat them is through triggering the fermentation and composting processes. Adding effective microorganisms (EM), such as lactic acid/phototropic bacteria and yeast, accelerates the conventional fermentation and composting processes used for the solid waste treatment (Al-Gheethi et al. 2020 ). Costa et al. have sequenced the whole genome of the strain Streptomyces sp. Z38, and detected growth-promoting, heavy metal-eliminating, and anti-microbial features within specific biosynthetic genes. Streptomyces sp. Z38 seems to be a suitable agent for bioremediation due to its ability to decompose heavy metals such as Cr (VI) and Cd (II). Costa et al. have supplemented the bioactive water (BW) extracted from Streptomyces sp. Z38 with AgNO 3 additives and produced silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) that are capable of performing the bioremediation process (Costa et al. 2020 ). There are other effective nanomaterials exploited to reduce many pollutants from soil and wastewater. For instance, utilization of nano-manganese oxide to eliminate ZnII/CoII from water (Mahmoud et al. 2020 ), application of nano-semiconductors on water and their Photocatalytic effectiveness (Oliveira et al. 2021 ), nano-scaled Iron (II) sulfide exploited to reduce hexavalent chromium from soil (Tan et al. 2020 ), production of nanocomposite for eliminating viruses (Al-Attabi et al. 2019 ), and successful application of nano biosurfactants which cause no toxicity for the environment (Debnath et al. 2021 ). Nano-bioremediation as an emergent approach causes some concerns and benefits at the same time. It is possible that nanomaterials exploited in this method would be a threat to the organism populations that exist naturally in water bodies. On the other hand, new living organisms would be introduced through bioremediation. The mentioned two scenarios can potentially put the anthropogenic features of ecosystems in danger (Weijie et al. 2020 ). Concerning this problem, however, scientists are trying to apply new methods to remove nanoparticles from marine ecosystems via other technologies (Ebrahimbabaie et al. 2020 ).

Designing nano-based water purification techniques, to overcome the problem of lack of clean water, across the world

Waterborne diseases that cause almost 10–20 million deaths annually are considered crucial health-related issues. According to the World Health Organization and environmental protection agencies, the pollution level of several water bodies has long crossed the defined limitations. Thus, developing methods for purging water from adverse components is of great concern (Sahu et al. 2021 ). The water purification process profits extremely from nanobiotechnology. Nanoparticles are extremely efficient in eliminating pollutants (e.g., dye components) due to their nano-scaled size and increased surface areas. In the case of dye removal, magnetic nanoparticles have been proved to be proper candidates (Lohrasebi and Koslowski 2019 ). Nanoadsorbents such as silica gel, activated alumina, clays, limestone, chitosan, activated carbon, and zeolite are cost-effective and profitable options for eliminating the contaminating agents during water purification process (Ali et al. 2020 ).

Copper and copper compounds are potent biocides and have been utilized as a disinfectant for centuries due to their anti-microbial properties. It becomes more functional in its nano form and exhibits outstanding synergist, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial effects (Bashir et al. 2021 ).

Copper nanoparticles have the potential of combination with other materials like Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibres and Polyethylene Terephthalate Filters to act more beneficial (Ahire and Neveling 2018 ; Nguyen et al. 2021 ).

Metallic nanomaterials, carbon-based nanomaterials, nanocomposites, and dendrimers are four major types of nanomaterials that can be applied in wastewater purgation (Murshid et al. 2021 ). Graphene-based nano-channels, which are inspired by aquaporin channels, have been utilized as water filters and are expected to enhance the water permeability and the salt rejection rate. It is worth noting that the efficiency of these filters can be affected by various factors. For example, it has been indicated that increasing the charges on the channel will decrease the water flow through the channel but, on the other hand, increase the ion rejection rate (Lohrasebi and Koslowski 2019 ). Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have rendered noticeable results in eliminating the water contaminants, as well (Kutara et al. 2016 ).

The biosafety of water purification via finger-sized unit (FSU) has been certified by cellular and animal tests. In one study, Li et al. loaded 3D printed finger-sized units with prepared wheat straw (WS). To prepare WS for mentioned technique, the carbonized wheat straw (CWS) was adjusted with nano-scaled zinc oxide during an in-situ surface-modification process (CWS/ZnO). The resulted FSU was able to reduce bacteria, organic dyes, and heavy metal ions; therefore, elevating the purification efficiency. Since WS is one of the major agricultural wastes worldwide, applying it in water purification will not only cost very low but will reduce the air pollution which is caused by burning WS in many countries. The WS has a hallow, flexible, and electrical conductor structure. These features make WS a great candidate for enhancing water purification performance (Li et al. 2019 ).

For designing a nano-based filtering membrane, nanoparticles don’t always have to be chemically synthesized or externally applied on the membrane. An emerging study has suggested a top-down approach that uses biomass to provide a functional membrane for the purification of the emulsions. This method can be used massively in cleaning oily waters resulting from industrial or domestic activities. The biomass used in the mentioned technique is wood tissue. The lignin and hemicellulose fractions are removed sectionally, and therefore, a highly porous, flexible, and durable membrane is provided. Since the lignin is removed and there is no hydrophobia left, the resulting wood membrane consists of outstanding water-absorbing and anti-oil properties. The wood-nanotechnology-based membrane shows significant efficiency due to its numerous advantages, including being green, economical, easy to produce, durable, and having selective wettability (Kim et al. 2020 ).

Rezaei et al. have synthesized a flower-shaped ZnO/GO/Fe 3 O 4 ternary nanocomposite through the co-precipitation method, which is considered a rather fast and easy synthesis approach. The mentioned nanocomposite improves the ZnO degradation through a performance with an efficiency that is more than two times greater than the efficiency of the methods using ZnO particles alone. Hence, the ZnO/GO/Fe 3 O 4 ternary nanocomposite seems to be an economical and time-saving approach for wastewater remediation (Rezaei et al. 2021 ).

It is worth noting that the vast uses of nanoparticles in different industrial products increase the risk of the inevitable release of nanoparticles into the environment, and therefore cause some concerns about the potential damages of nanobiotechnology. The urban wastewater seems to be highly exposed to industrial nanoparticles. The high concentrations of nanoparticles in the urban wastewater contaminate the sewage sludge, consequently. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are currently exploited to remove nanoparticles from wastewater and sewage sludge (Wang and Chen 2016 ). Nanoparticles synthesized and utilized in the industry can end up in marine ecosystems. Nanoparticles are developed from various chemical components such as carbon, silver, gold, and copper, which are potentially hazardous to live organisms. Since nanoparticles are extremely small in size, likely, they will easily enter the bodies of aquatic animals. It has been demonstrated that the accumulation of nanoparticles in the animal’s body can cause severe morphological and behavioral deformities. Genetic materials of cells may undergo various changes as well (Gökçe 2021 ).

FeO ion, which is known as Nanoscale zerovalent iron particles (nZVI), is massively used in the synthesis of nanoparticles applied in wastewater nano-based treatments. Bensaida et al. have shown that combining nZVI with another metal (Cu) enhances the growth of the microbial populations in the wastewater treated with this nZVI\Cu bimetallic nanoparticles (Bensaida et al. 2021 ).

Exploiting nanobiotechnology-based methods in food industry

Nanotechnology-based pharmaceuticals were developed primarily, but wide applications of nanoscience in food and agricultural industries have been introduced as well (Sahani and Sharma 2020 ). Utilizing nanoscience in any stage of the food production process-either cultivation, production, post-harvest processing, or packaging—seems to be lucrative. The application of nano-based methods in the food industry has various advantages, but the most arguable of them would be its impact on shelf life augmentation and spoilage prevention (Bhuyan et al. 2019 ). Since Oxygen is known as an important cause of food spoilage in the food industry, scientists have developed the technology of advanced coatings based on nanotechnology to prevent Oxygen from spoiling the product (Rovera et al. 2020 ). Multiple nanoparticles have the potential to deliver nutritional or antimicrobial components into food materials (Bhuyan et al. 2019 ). It has been reported that nanotechnology is a good option to deliver pesticides and nutrients successfully into the soil and improve the strength and tolerance of products in different stressful situations and reduce the probable contaminations (Ali et al. 2021 ). Among different nanoparticles such as silver, titanium dioxide, and zinc oxide, nanoliposomes are found to be small and have a large surface area which makes them more adhesive to biological tissues- therefore more bioavailable in comparison to others. Nanoliposomes are suitable candidates for creating a delivery system during food preparation. Food provided with the help of nanotechnology is called “Nano food” (Bhuyan et al. 2019 ). Nano foods can perform as therapeutic options. It is interesting to mention a recent study that has proposed exploiting nanoemulsions to convey needed nutrients to gastrectomy patients. These types of patients usually suffer from conditions like anorexia, energy deficit, and malnutrition, which can be treated by efficient nutrition delivery provided by nano food (Razavi et al. 2020 ). As mentioned earlier, in the food preparation process, antimicrobial components can be delivered along with nutritional components via a nano-based delivery system. Polyphenols are great examples of substantial antioxidant and antimicrobial agents in the food industry. Nevertheless, polyphenols have some limitations, including instability, low solubility, inefficient bioavailability, and being drastically susceptible to being degraded. There are several factors that reinforce degradation: Oxygen, light, pH, and interactions between polyphenols and other components in food. Polyphenol-loaded nanoparticles relatively overcome the mentioned obstacles due to their capacity to protect phenolic compounds against degrading processes (Milinčić et al. 2019 ). As a renewable and biodegradable source, starch is a useful polymer that has been applied in different fields such as the pharmaceutical and food industries. Nano-size starch is an advanced material with new abilities in the matter of hydrophobicity and stability (Wang and Zhang 2020 ). In the field of the food industry, there are also many other new methods based on nanotechnology, for instance, designing natural proteins as nano-architectures to deliver nutraceuticals (Tang 2021 ), new strategies for packaging food products by exploitation of the knowledge of nano-biotechnology, and nanomaterials (Reshmy et al. 2021 ; Jogee et al. 2021 ; Tiwari et al. 2021 ), utilization of the nano-delivery techniques to overcome the problems of consuming bioactive ingredients (Hosseini et al. 2021 ; Ozogul et al. 2021 ), producing nanoparticles in the shape of powder using the nanospray driers (Jafari et al. 2021 ), detection of food contaminants by nano-Ag combinations (Yao et al. 2021 ), and even the application of nano-engineering in the field of the beverage industry (Saari and Chua 2020 ).

Nano-bio catalysts; an attempt to remove the barriers of enzymatic bioprocesses in the biotechnology industry

Organic enzymes, which are normally found in nature, have large applications in the biotechnology industry. Since organic enzymes are green and eco-friendly, they are usually preferred to commercially synthesized enzymes. Pectinase is considered to be extremely useful for manufacturing purposes. Pectinase application in industrial bioprocesses covers a large range from clarification of juice/ wine and tea/coffee fermentation to wastewater and industrial waste remediation. All enzymes- regardless of being organic or chemically synthesized- consist of limitations that make their usage challenging. Three major disadvantages of enzymes are inefficient recoverability, operational stability, and recyclability (Zhang et al. 2021 ). Functional nanomaterial-based bio-carriers render a proper environment for the enzymatic immobilization process, therefore facilitating recovery and recycling of enzymes and enhancing the efficiency of bioprocesses in the long run. Accordingly, designing nano-based carriers with these features has been attracted great attention. To achieve this aim, Graphene- immobilized nano-bio-catalysts have been proved to be greatly useful due to the Graphene’s characteristics: electrical, optical, thermal, and mechanical high potency (Adeel et al. 2018 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ).

Nanomaterial-based nanocatalysts are useful in optimizing the biodiesel production process. This ability is related to the features of nano-scaled materials, including crystallisability, high adsorption and storage potential, having catalytic activities, and great stability and durability. Various materials can be used to create nanoparticles for this mean; some examples are metal oxide (calcium, magnesium oxide, and strontium oxide), Magnetic material, and Carbon. Carbon-based nanomaterials consist of multiple types, such as carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, graphene oxide, and biochar.

All examples mentioned above have been proved to be highly effective in increasing the efficiency of the biodiesel synthesizing process and reducing the time and cost required for operating the process without utilizing nanotechnology (Nizami and Rehan 2018 ).

Replacing non-renewable energy sources with renewable ones is a great step in guaranteeing a sustainable future. Various devices, including solar and fuel cells, have been developed for this purpose. Conventional fuel cells are made from metal reactants instead of fossil fuels. They provide an electron circulation, transfer electrons from the substrate to specific electrodes, and eventually produce sustainable energy. The metals used as catalysts in fuel cells (e.g., hydrogen, methane, and methanol) are usually expensive and non-durable. On the other hand, biofuel cells use cost-effective bio-catalysts (e.g., microbes and enzymes) instead of metal catalysts. Despite the mentioned advantages, biofuel cells have one major limitation: the low rate of electron transfer between substrate and electrodes, which is significantly enhanced by supplementing biofuel cells with nanomaterials. Nanomaterials are able to assemble the substrate (e.g., enzymes) with the electrodes. In other words, using them in the structure of electrodes, the electron absorption of electrodes improves- related to the high surface area rate of nanomaterials- therefore, a direct transition of electrons between enzymes and electrodes develops. Silver nanoparticles-Graphene oxide (Ag-GO), Graphite, Carbon-nanotube forest (CNTF), Carbon nanotube (CNT), and Nitrogen-doped hollow nanospheres with large pores (pNHCSs) are the nanomaterials applied in nano- biofuel cells. Respectively, Glucose oxidase (GO x ), Glucose oxidase and Laccase, Fructose dehydrogenase & laccase, Glucose oxidase and laccase, and NADH dehydrogenase form the enzymatic system of each nanomaterial (Sharma et al. 2021 ).

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs); highly advantageous materials

Porous materials are known to be highly advantageous due to their high absorption and surface areas. Zeolites, activated carbons, and silicas are examples of this family, but the most eminent member among them are Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs have features that make them unique for several applications. For example, MOFs show a high absorption rate, which is caused by their high surface areas. Another property of MOFs is their possession of several adjustable microporous channels, which makes it easy to produce different and changeable functional sites through them. The latest feature brings MOFs the shape and size selectivity. By controlling the starting materials and reaction parameters, it is possible to determine the morphology of MOFs (Kinik et al. 2020 ; Jun et al. 2020 ) into various shapes, including granule, pellet, thin-film, gel, foam, paper sheet, monolith, and hollow structures (Kinik et al. 2020 ).

There are two types of MOFs: (1) neutral MOFs and (2) ionic MOFs. Ionic MOFs are able to be used directly in anion purgation processes. For example, one approach for reducing the pollutant anions from the environment is synthesizing a cationic framework along with extra-framework anions. The synthesis of mentioned frameworks occurs by utilizing neutral nitrogen donors. The extra-framework anions will exchange with pollutant anions through an Ion exchange process called: “Anion trapping”.

Anions are extremely abundant in nature. One of the most pollutant and hazardous anions is phosphates. These toxic anions are highly used in pesticides. Other examples of toxic anions, which are considerably frequent in industrial wastes, are the bulky anions. These are the dye molecules exploited in industry. Various diseases like cancers, lung/kidney dysfunction, and brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s, are caused by dangerous anions like those mentioned above. Hence, creating methods that are able to recognize and delete the perilous anions from the environment is one of the most appreciated scientific approaches. MOFs have been proved to be functional for this mean (Desai et al. 2019 ).

Since MOFs have considerable surface areas and modifiable structure—different open metal sites and other functional groups can be introduced into their frameworks—they are suitable options for numerous applications which are generally related to detection and storage. In the case of storage, they exhibit acceptable physical adsorption for CO 2 (one of the major causes of global warming), H 2 (a clean energy source), and Methane (CH 4 ). The ability to adsorb variant components makes MOFs proper for water purification applications. Several toxic and harmful components which are responsible for water contamination, including organic pollutants (like dyes and oils) and heavy metal ions, can be detected, adsorbed, and removed by MOFs. Introducing different chemical groups into MOFs creates different internal interactions, which enable MOFs to detect target molecules functionally. Therefore, they can be used in active centers of catalysts, photocatalysts, and biosensors (Kinik et al. 2020 ).

MOFs-based nanozymes

Nanozymes are classified into two types: (1) natural enzymes that are incorporated with nanomaterials and (2) nanomaterials that exhibit inherent enzymatic features. Exploiting MOFs as nanomaterials in nanozyme structures will produce an emergent form of nanozymes, called: “MOF-based nanozymes”; which have multiple advantages over conventional forms. MOFs provide more catalytic sites, simplify the entrance of small substrate molecules -due to their porous structure-, enhance the substrate exclusivity, and altogether improve the catalytic function of enzymes. MOF-based nanozymes are effective in designing biosensors, biocatalysis, and biomedical imaging techniques. A recent promising application of them is in cancer therapy which reduces side effects significantly (Ding et al. 2020 ).

Agricultural usages of nanobiotechnology

Applying nanobiotechnology in agriculture to improve the agricultural production rate has been of great importance recently. Achieving this purpose will solve several problems related to the universal hunger dilemma. Several nanofertilizers, nano pesticides, and nano-bio sensors have been created, which are able to increase crop value and decrease crop loss caused by agricultural pests (Usman et al. 2020 ). Conventional chemical pesticides and fertilizers can be deteriorative for soil composition and fertility. This happens because chemical residues can target many molecules other than the ones that have been defined as their main targets (Chhipa 2019 ). Besides, pesticides can have ruinous impacts on the microorganisms that naturally exist in the environment and are required for the crop’s growth (Nehra et al. 2021 ). Utilizing nanoparticles can considerably reduce such unwanted events due to the high exclusivity of these particles. Silver, zinc, iron, titanium, phosphorus, molybdenum, and polymer are suitable materials to be used in the structure of agricultural nanoparticles (Chhipa 2019 ). Nanoparticles containing nutrients, fertilizers, and pesticides, can be sprayed externally to the plant. The folium will adsorb the nanoparticles and send them to the soil (Chugh et al. 2021 ).

Another application of nanobiotechnology in diminishing the damages of some traditional pesticides is designing nano-bio sensors that can efficiently detect toxic pesticides. Dichlorvos is one of these toxic pesticides that accumulate in the air, soil, water, and crops; and therefore causes neural, genetical, respirational, and muscular disorders. Dichlorvos-sensitive Nano-biosensors comprise immobilized enzymes embedded in nanomaterials. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE), tyrosinase enzymes, and some others are options for the enzymatic part of the nanodevice. For the nano- matrix section, both organic (carbon, graphene, chitosan, and onion membrane) and inorganic (silver, gold, silica, and Titania) options are available (Mishra et al. 2021 ). Nanomaterials can enhance the remediation process of contaminated soils through distinct abiotic and biotic directions, including the nano-bioremediation process (Usman et al. 2020 ).

Other than improving the functions of existed plants, the possibility of introducing engineered plants with better performances has been discussed recently. The term “plant nano bionics” refers to a pioneering idea of involving nanoparticles in living plants to make their intrinsic functions adjustable. The landscape of this idea is designing engineered artificial photosynthetic systems, enhancing the growth rate of this new type of plant, and many other novel applications which are expected to grow extremely in the years ahead (Marchiol 2018 ).

It is necessary to mention that inorganic nanoparticles that may be found in consumer products, may alter the gut composition and could lead to various gut-related diseases. Thus, there have to be some limitations in nanoparticle agricultural usages (Gangadoo et al. 2021 ; Ghebretatios et al. 2021 ).

Using nanoparticles in cosmetic products

Nowadays, due to special and distinctive physicochemical characteristics, nanomaterials are being vastly used in different industries. Recent studies are focused on applying nano-based technologies to improve the quality of cosmetic products. Nanostructures are about to deliver active ingredients to the skin. For this reason, it is more suitable to use lipid particles that are better adaptable to dermal absorption. The high stability of the combination of nanomaterials and lipid particles with cosmetic components indicates high efficiency. However, the probable risks of this method should not be ignored (Benrabah et al. 2020 ; Khezri et al. 2018 ). Producing nanoparticles using plants (Phyto-metal nano-based particles) is another advantageous method to decrease the toxicity of nanomaterials and their hazardous effects on the body. For this reason, this material is suitable for dermal uses and cosmetic applications (Paiva-Santos et al. 2021 ). Chitosan nanoparticles with better penetrability (Ta et al. 2021 ; Sakulwech et al. 2018 ), Gold and silver nanoparticles with a higher ability to reduce microbial contaminants (Séby 2021 ), Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) nanoparticles deposited with yttrium oxide (Y 2 O 3 ) with better attenuation of ultraviolet radiation and less cytotoxicity (Borrás et al. 2020 ), nanoparticles with high uptake of oily components (de Azevedo Stavale et al. 2019 ) are other examples of the efficient application of nanotechnology in the field of cosmetic products.

Since nanoparticles are small in size, they exhibit perfect penetrability through the skin. Hence, using nanoparticles in cosmetic productions improves the supplementation of skin, hair, or teeth with active cosmetic ingredients (APIs). It is important to note that utilizing nanoparticles for several applications, as an emerging field of science, causes various concerns about being toxic or harmful for the body or the environment. The cosmetic industry’s products are commonly designed for skin, hair, nail, teeth, and therefore, are directly related to the health of the human body. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that there are even more concerns about using nanoparticles in this industry compared to others (Santos et al. 2019 ).

In addition to these cases, nanotechnology can be useful for the detection of harmful components in cosmetic ingredients. Therefore the application of methods like covered iron oxide nanoparticles with silver for detection of mercury contamination in cosmetics (Chen et al. 2021a , b ), Quantitative assessment of the Triamcinolone acetonide (TCA) (which is a hazardous component in high doses) using nanoparticles with luminescence property (Zhang et al. 2019a ), And detection of harmful N-nitrosamines with the utilization of magnetic nanoparticles (Miralles et al. 2019 ) are worth mentioning.

Oil industry benefits from multiple types of nanomaterials

Nanomaterials can play a major role in the advancement of the oil industry. Almost every form of nanomaterial—discussed in previous sections—has been exhibited to have numerous applications in the oil industry. Nanomaterial can be effectively exploited in various processes of this industry, including oil exploration/production and recovering the oilfield. Nanofluids (synthesized from nanomaterials) optimize the oil production process. Nanocatalysts have applications in petrochemical processes along with operating an efficient oil purgation function. Several applications of this technology are mentioned below.

There are nanomembranes designed to provide a proper matrix for separating water and oil from gas. They eventually purify the gas and delete redundant components from wastewater (Saleh 2018 ). Metal workings such as machining and stamping industry require some types of lubricants and coolants, which are mostly oil products. There has been produced an oil-based cutting fluid made up of Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles to decrease the friction force between the object and snipping tool (Subhedar et al. 2021 ). Encapsulation of extracted essential oil from hyssop in a nano-complex improves the antioxidant and antifungal efficiency of the oil (Hadidi et al. 2021 ). The application of nano-silica in the procedure of oil cementing enhances the resistance of the cement (Goyal et al. 2021 ; Thakkar et al. 2020 ). In the process of oil recovery, there is a high energy loss that imposes damages to the injection system and lowers the heat level. To keep the rate of temperature in a higher range and decrease the energy loss, scientists have applied nano-thermal insulators that are more economical (Afra et al. 2021 ; Zhao et al. 2021 ; Zhou et al. 2020 ). Gas and oil products can be cleaned from H 2 S by applying nanomaterials (Agarwal and Sudharsan 2021 ). Utilizing starch nano coatings (Wang et al. 2021 ), Lignin and nano-silica (Gong et al. 2021 ), Lotus leaf coated with nano-SiO 2 (Yang et al. 2021 ), and nano zeolite membrane are new methods for the separation of oil and water due to their high hydrophobic property (Anis et al. 2021 ). Nanotechnology can be used to improve the quality of engine oil, which results in the better stability and lubricity power as well as a reduced rate of released carbon mono oxide (Tonk 2021 ; Saidi et al. 2021 ; Thirugnanam et al. 2021 ; Ardebili et al. 2020 ). Advanced nanoemulsions show high stability and benefits for the oil industry due to the larger surface and the ability to wet (Kumar et al. 2021 ). Encapsulation of essential oils in nanostructures indicates a better performance as a pesticide due to better maintenance of the oil (Campolo et al. 2020 ). Producing an oil-in-water emulsion by applying protein nanoparticles can protect unstable and active ingredients and benefit the medicine and food industry (Xu et al. 2020 ).

Combining diverse fields of science in a manner that they overcome each other’s deficiencies indicates promising results. Within the last decades, biotechnology has made a lot of progress. Merging nanotechnology with biotechnological methods enables scientists to design less time taking, more economical, and more efficient techniques. This Nano-biotechnological approach influences multiple therapeutic, agricultural, environmental, and industrial methods. For instance, the effectiveness of the emergent crisper/cas9 systems increases noticeably by applying the nano-scaled additives at the process.

In this review, we investigated the current advancements and limitations of biotechnology, along with the nano-based alternatives rendered by nanotechnology. It seems highly probable that biotechnology will accomplish even more improvements in the future, and its incorporation with nanotechnology gets humankind one step closer to a sustainable future. Besides, the nano-based techniques are less costly compared to the conventional ones. Thus, with nano-biotechnology promoting, a revolution in the economic situation of the world is not implausible.

Author contributions

All authors have participated in (a) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of the data; (b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (c) approval of the final version. This manuscript has not been submitted to, nor is under review at, another journal or other publishing venue. The authors have no affiliation with any organization with a direct or indirect financial interest in the subject matter discussed in the manuscript.

Declarations

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Contributor Information

Nikta Shahcheraghi, Email: [email protected] .

Hasti Golchin, Email: moc.liamg@87nihclogitsah .

Zahra Sadri, Email: moc.liamg@6707irdasarhaz .

Yasaman Tabari, Email: [email protected] .

Forough Borhanifar, Email: [email protected] .

Shadi Makani, Email: [email protected] .

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Attosecond imaging made possible by short and powerful laser pulses

Extremely short pulses of laser light with a peak power of 6 terawatts (6 trillion watts)—roughly equivalent to the power produced by 6,000 nuclear power plants—have been realized by two RIKEN physicists. This achievement will help further develop attosecond lasers, for which three researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023. The work is published in the journal Nature Photonics .

In the same way that a camera flash can "freeze" rapidly moving objects, making them appear as if they are standing still in photos, extremely short laser pulses can help light up ultrafast processes, providing scientists with a powerful way to image and probe them.

For example, laser pulses of the order of attoseconds (one attosecond = 10 –18 second) are so short that they can reveal the motion of electrons in atoms and molecules, giving a new way to discover how chemical and biochemical reactions evolve. Even light seems to crawl at such short time scales, taking about 3 attoseconds to traverse a single nanometer.

"By making it possible to capture the motion of electrons, attosecond lasers have made a major contribution to basic science," says Eiji Takahashi of the RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics (RAP). "They're expected to be used in a wide range of fields, including observing biological cells, developing new materials and diagnosing medical conditions."

Power and punch

But while it is possible to create ultrashort laser pulses , they lack much punch, having low energies. Creating laser pulses that are both ultrashort and have high energies would greatly expand their possible uses. "The current output energy of attosecond lasers is extremely low," says Takahashi. "So it's vital to increase their output energy if they are to be used as light sources in a wide range of fields."

Just as audio amplifiers are used to boost sound signals, laser physicists use optical amplifiers to increase the energy of laser pulses. These amplifiers usually employ nonlinear crystals that exhibit special responses to light. But these crystals can be irreparably damaged if they are used to amplify single-cycle lasers pulses, which are so short that the pulse finishes before the light can oscillate through a full wavelength cycle.

"The biggest bottleneck in the development of energetic, ultrafast infrared laser sources has been the lack of an effective method to directly amplify single-cycle laser pulses," explains Takahashi. "This bottleneck has resulted in a one-millijoule barrier for the energy of single-cycle laser pulses."

A new record

Now, Takahashi and RAP colleague, Lu Xu, have not just exceeded this barrier, they have smashed through it. They have amplified single-cycle pulses to beyond 50 millijoules—more than 50 times the previous best effort. Because the resulting laser pulses are so short, this energy translates into incredibly high powers of several terawatts.

"We've demonstrated how to overcome the bottleneck by establishing an effective method for amplifying a single-cycle laser pulse," says Takahashi.

Their method, called advanced dual-chirped optical parametric amplification (DC-OPA), is surprisingly simple, involving just two crystals, which amplify complementary regions of the spectrum.

"Advanced DC-OPA for amplifying a single-cycle laser pulse is very simple, being based on just a combination of two kinds of nonlinear crystals—it feels like an idea that anyone could have come up with," says Takahashi. "I was surprised that such a simple concept provided a new amplification technology and caused a breakthrough in the development of high-energy ultrafast lasers."

Importantly, advanced DC-OPA works over a very broad range of wavelengths. Takahashi and Xu were able to amplify pulses whose wavelengths differed by more than a factor of two. "This new method has the revolutionary feature that the amplification bandwidth can be made ultrawide without compromising the output energy-scaling characteristics," says Takahashi.

Amplification technique

Their technique is a variation on another amplification technique for optical pulses, called "chirped pulse amplification," for which three researchers from the United States, France and Canada were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018. There is an interesting connection between the 2018 and 2023 prizes in that chirped pulse amplification was one of the techniques that enabled the development of attosecond lasers.

Takahashi anticipates that their technique will further advance the development of attosecond lasers. "We have succeeded in developing a new laser amplification method that can increase the intensity of single-cycle laser pulses to terawatt-class peak power," he says. "It's undoubtedly a major leap forward in the development of high-power attosecond lasers."

In the longer term, he has his sights set on going beyond attosecond lasers and creating even shorter pulses.

"By combining single-cycle lasers with higher-order nonlinear optical effects, it could well be possible to generate pulses of light with a time width of zeptoseconds (one zeptosecond = 10 –21 second)," he says. "My long-term goal is to knock on the door of zeptosecond-laser research, and open up the next generation of ultrashort lasers after attosecond lasers."

Journal information: Nature Photonics

Provided by RIKEN

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Ozempic Hurts the Fight Against Eating Disorders

I t’s impossible to escape the soaring popularity of Ozempic and similar drugs these days—daily headlines, celebrity “success” stories, and apparent ease in procuring prescriptions (even Costco sells them now) abound. But the cumulative effect of all of this has many experts in the eating disorder field worried about how this might affect their patients. This makes sense—even for those without eating disorders, these drugs can feel both triggering and enticing. After all, research tells us about 90% of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. This sounds like a quick fix.

Then, I started hearing reports—first anecdotal, then published —that some doctors were prescribing weight loss drugs like Ozempic to their patients with eating disorders. As in, to help treat them.

As a journalist who has extensively researched the harms of eating disorders and the barriers to recovery—and as a woman who had suffered from eating disorders on and off for much of my own life—I thought I must have misunderstood. Yes, we as a society are in the midst of Ozempic Fever—and by “fever,” I’m referring to excitement, rather than a possible side effect of the drug (which it is). Researchers are continuing to find new potential applications for these drugs, initially developed to treat type 2 diabetes. In March, the FDA approved a new indication for the weight-loss drug Wegovy (which has the same active ingredient as Ozempic), allowing it to be used as a treatment to reduce the risk for heart attack and stroke. Ozempic, a diabetes drug, used off-label for weight loss, is also being studied to treat anxiety and depression , polycystic ovary syndrome, substance abuse, Alzheimer’s , and now—eating disorders.

Read More: Ozempic Exposed the Cracks in the Body Positivity Movement

It’s early days and research hasn’t yet caught up with the enthusiasm.  But our cultural misunderstanding of eating disorders, even by well-meaning practitioners, could exacerbate the illnesses for those who suffer from them—and have dire consequences.

The new class of weight loss drugs mimics the body’s GLP-1 hormone , stimulating insulin production, and lowering blood sugar levels, helpful to those with type 2 diabetes. The drugs also curb appetite and slow the speed that food moves into the small intestine—you feel full more quickly and eat less. Many patients without eating disorders who take these drugs, have reported a reduction of “food noise” in their minds—referring to obsessive thoughts and preoccupation with food. (Though, as philosopher Kate Manne wisely posited in a recent New York Times piece , isn’t “food noise,” simply, hunger?)

For folks suffering from binge eating disorder (BED) or bulimia nervosa (BN), a drug that decreases appetite may seem to make sense. Both illnesses are characterized by eating large amounts of food, eating until uncomfortably full, and feeling distress around that (bulimia is distinguished by purging after a binge).

Binge eating often emerges as part of a cycle of restriction—dieting, fasting, or eliminating entire food groups—like carbs, for example. “Many people struggling with BED view the binge episodes as the problem and the restriction as something to strive for,” said Alexis Conason, a psychologist specializing in the treatment of binge eating disorder. “When people with BED take a GLP-1 medication that dampens their appetite, many are excited that they can be ‘better’ at restriction and consume very little throughout the day.” Subsequently, Conason adds, there is a dangerous potential for BED to then morph into anorexia, starving oneself with possibly life-threatening complications.

Eating disorders are complex illnesses that aren’t yet fully understood, even by experts in the field. Underneath the behaviors around food is often an intricate web of trauma, anxiety, and even genetic predisposition, all set against the backdrop of a culture that prizes thinness . Low weight is frequently (incorrectly) conflated with good health, and people in larger bodies are often subjected to bullying, negative stereotypes, and discrimination in the workplace .

Read More: Ozempic Gets the Oprah Treatment in a New TV Special

Emerging research strongly supports that for many, eating disorders are brain-based illnesses and in most cases, there exists a co-morbidity like anxiety, mood disorders, or substance abuse.

“GLP-1’s can’t help someone deal with their stress, anxiety, [and] trauma-history,” said psychologist Cynthia Bulik, one of the world’s leading eating disorder researchers, and Founding Director of the University of North Carolina Center of Excellence of Eating Disorders. “All of that background distress—fundamental distress that might be driving the BED in the first place—is temporarily bypassed by removing the desire to eat.”

Nearly 30 million Americans will have an eating disorder in their lifetime, but only about 6% of those are medically diagnosed as “underweight,” according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. This means that a person may exhibit all of the diagnostic hallmarks of anorexia, for example, extreme restriction and even malnourishment, but still present as average weight or even overweight. They may even be told by a physician to lose weight, despite the fact that they are already going to dangerous extremes to chase that “goal.”

“We tend to think that everyone in a larger body with an eating disorder must have BED and everyone in a smaller body must have anorexia, but this couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Conason. “So many people with BED seek help in weight loss settings instead of seeking eating disorder treatment; many view the problem as their weight and think they need more help sticking to their diet” when in reality, an end to the restriction would more likely regulate their eating.

It’s much easier to get weight loss treatment than help for an eating disorder. There is no standard of care for eating disorders in this country and treatment is unregulated. While there are some promising, evidenced-based treatments (cognitive behavioral therapy for adults, and family-based treatment for children and teens), they don’t work for everyone. If a person is fortunate to be diagnosed and receive adequate treatment, relapses are common and full recovery can be elusive.

Further, these drugs are often intended to be taken for a person’s entire life. “When they go off the drug, or can’t access it due to supply problems, the urge to binge comes right back and they have not developed any psychological (or) behavioral skills to manage the urge,” Bulik told me. Just like with a diet, any lost weight will likely be regained when a person stops taking the drugs. Weight fluctuations, themselves ,may increase a person’s risk of chronic illnesses like type 2 diabetes, according to multiple studies.

“The focus on weight and erasing the desire to eat could indeed do harm,” cautioned Bulik. “The potential for abuse is high and will become higher with new preparations that don’t require an injection … Remember, these drugs are ‘for life.’ Stop them, and everything comes rushing back.”

The long-term side effects of GLP-1’s are not yet known. But the harms of eating disorders are: eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness (second only to opioid overdose). People with eating disorders are more likely to attempt suicide, and during COVID-19, emergency room visits and inpatient admissions for eating disorders at pediatric hospitals skyrocketed, particularly for young women. According to the CDC, emergency room visits for 12-17 year old girls who suffer from eating disorders doubled during the pandemic. Those numbers, as shown by recent studies , have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

An even greater concern is that the gaps in comprehensive care for eating disorders invite experimental, potentially harmful treatments and leave patients vulnerable. GLP-1’s may seem like a short-term “fix,” but they won’t graze the deeper issues nor will they diminish the eating disorder crisis in this country. And it is a crisis—every year, eating disorders cost the U.S. more than $65 billion .

I know too well that if a doctor advises their patient with an eating disorder “here’s something to make you eat less” most patients would happily oblige. That’s part of the pathology of the illness. It’s the eating disorder talking. Ideally, it wouldn’t be your doctor’s voice, too.

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