Design of a Nanoassembly System
9 May 2008, 16:07
Categories: molecular-manufacturing molecular-machines--devices
In his 1986 book, Engines of Creation, K. Eric Drexler set down the long-term aim of nanotechnology – to create an assembler, a microscopic robot that could construct products from a stock of atoms and molecules. For the last two decades, researchers who recognized the benefits of achieving molecular manufacturing have used top-down and bottom-up methods to develop molecular machines. The top-down approach is seen in the manipulative power of the atomic force microscope (AFM), a machine that can observe and handle single atoms, and the bottom-up approach uses chemistry to build molecular machinery. However, neither the top-down nor the bottom-up approach is yet to fulfill Drexler’s prophecy of functional nanobots that can construct other machines and useful products.
The first real steps towards building a microscopic device that can construct nanomachines have recently been taken by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US. Soon to be published in the peer-reviewed publication International Journal of Nanomanufacturing, researchers from the NIST’s Intelligent Systems Division have described an early, proto-prototype for a nanoscale assembler.
Jason Gorman, of the Intelligent Systems Division, concedes that, “Nanoassembly is extremely challenging.” Yet the rewards could be enormous with the ultimate potential of creating a technology that can construct almost any material from atoms and molecules from super-strong but incredibly lightweight construction materials to a molecular computer or even nanobots that can make other nanobots to solve global problems, such as food, water, and energy shortages. “Our demonstration is still a work in progress,” says Gorman, “you might describe it as a ‘proto-prototype’ for a nanoassembler.”
Posted by: The Editors
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