Page 7 - Nanotechnology an introduction

Preface

There are already hundreds of books in print on nanotechnology in English alone, at all levels up to that of the advanced researcher and ranging in
coverage from detailed accounts of incremental improvements in existing microtechnologies to far-reaching visionary approaches toward
productive nanosystems. Furthermore, not only do many old-established scientific journals in the fields of physics and chemistry now carry
nanotechnology sections, but numerous scientific journals dedicated solely to nanotechnology have appeared and new ones are launched each
year. In addition, a flood of commercially oriented reports about present and future nanotechnology markets is constantly being produced; these are
often weighty documents comprising a thousand pages or more, whose reliability is difficult to assess, since even if they make use of publicly
available data, the processing of those data in order to arrive at predictions is typically carried out using unrevealed algorithms.

Faced with this huge and burgeoning literature, the newcomer to the field, who may well have a strong background in one of the traditional
disciplines such as physics, mechanical or electrical engineering, chemistry or biology, or who may have been working on microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) (also known as microsystems technology, MST), is likely to feel confronted with a somewhat chaotic and colorful scene from
which it is often difficult to extract meaning. The goal of this book is to tackle that problem by presenting an overview of the entire field, focusing on
key essentials, with which the reader will be able to erect his or her own personal scaffold on which the amazingly diverse plethora of detailed
information emerging from countless laboratories all over the world can be structured into some kind of coherent order. The emphasis is therefore
on concepts; any attempt to complement this by capturing all the latest specific discoveries and inventions in nanotechnology, other than
illustratively, would almost immediately become out of date; the aim of this book might briefly be stated as being “to make sense of
nanotechnology”—to explain things thoroughly enough to be intelligible while still remaining introductory.
The book itself is structured around a robust anatomy of the subject. Following a basic introduction (Chapter 1), which includes a brief history of the
subject, careful consideration is given to the meaning of the nanoscale (Chapter 2), on which everything else is dependent, since nanotechnology
can most simply (but cryptically) be defined as “technology (or engineering) at the nanoscale”. This chapter in itself constitutes a succinct summary
of the entire field. Chapter 3 is devoted to interfacial forces, which govern key aspects of behavior at the nanoscale. Chapter 4 covers the nano/bio
interface, which plays a fundamental role in the continuing evolution of nanotechnology, and Chapter 5 deals with the demanding issues of
metrology in nanotechnology, which have also strongly influenced nanofabrication technology. In this chapter, the metrology of the nano/bio interface
is covered in detail, since this is one of the newest and least familiar parts of the field. Nanomaterials (both nano-objects and nanostructured
materials) are covered in Chapter 6—except carbon nanomaterials (and devices), which merit a separate chapter (9). Nanoscale devices of all
kinds (except those based on carbon)—mainly information processors and transducers, including sensors are the topic of Chapter 7 and
strategies for their fabrication are covered in Chapter 8, devoted to the three fundamental approaches towards achieving nanoscale manufacture
(nanofacture), namely the top–down methods rooted in ultraprecision engineering and semiconductor processing, the bottom-to-bottom approach
that is closest to the original concept of nanotechnology (the molecular assembler), and the bottom–up (self-assembly) methods that have been
powerfully inspired by processes in the living world. Problems of materials selection, design and so forth are treated in Chapter 10, especially how
to deal with vastification; that is, the vast numbers of components in a nanosystem and the almost inevitable occurrence of defective ones. Chapter
11 is devoted to bionanotechnology, defined as the incorporation of biomolecules into nanodevices. The final chapter (12) deals with the impacts of
nanotechnology: technical, economic, social, psychological and ethical. Each chapter is provided with a succinct summary at the end as well as
suggestions for further reading. A glossary of nanotechnology neologisms is appended, along with a list of the most common abbreviations.
The primary readership is expected to be engineers and scientists who have previously been working in other fields but are considering entering
the nano field and wish to rapidly acquire an appreciation of its vocabulary, possibilities and limitations. The secondary readership is anyone
curious about nanotechnology, including undergraduates and professionals in other fields. The book should also appeal to those less directly
connected with science and engineering, such as insurers and lawyers, whose activities are very likely to be connected with nanotechnology in the
future, and traders, commodity brokers and entrepreneurs in general dissatisfied with remaining in ignorance of the technology that they are making
use of. It is designed to equip the reader with the ability to cogently appraise the merits or otherwise of any piece of nanotechnology that may be
reported in one form or another.
It is a distinct characteristic of nanotechnology that many of its features draw heavily from existing work in chemistry, physical chemistry, physics
and biology. Hence, there is relatively little domain-specific knowledge associated with nanotechnology. Most of the themes in this book are
covered in great detail in specialist literature that may not exclusively or even overtly be associated with nanotechnology. It seems, therefore, that
nanotechnology is most aptly globally characterized as an attitude or mindset, comprising above all the desire both to understand the world at the
atomic level and to create objects of beauty and utility by controlling matter at that level. Unlike the science of the subatomic level, however,
nanotechnology necessarily concerns itself with superatomic levels as well, since the ultimate objects of its creation must be macroscopic in order
to be of use to humanity. Hence, problems of emergent properties also form a part of nanotechnology.
The uniqueness of this book resides in its unifying viewpoint that draws many disparate pieces of knowledge together to create novel technologies.
These nanotechnologies are in turn united by the distinctive attitude associated with nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology is inseparably associated with the emergence of qualitatively different behavior when a quantitative difference, namely increasing
smallness, becomes great enough: one might call this a Hegelian viewpoint of nanotechnology. Phenomena that are merely modified pari passu
with diminishing size without any qualitative change should not, therefore, strictly rank as nanotechnology. This viewpoint avoids the pitfall of having
to group practically all of physics, chemistry and biology under nanotechnology because of too vague a definition.

Inevitably, the author of a book of this nature is greatly indebted to countless colleagues and correspondents both at Cranfield and throughout the
world. It would be invidious to mention some without mentioning all, and they are too numerous for the latter, but I hope that in this era of a
voluminous research literature their inputs are adequately reflected in the reference list.
Jeremy J. Ramsden
Cranfield

May 2010