Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale.

Generally, nanotechnology deals with structures sized between 1 to 100 nanometre in at least one dimension, and involves developing materials or devices possessing at least one dimension within that size. Quantum mechanical effects are very important at this scale, which is in the quantum realm. Nanotechnology is very diverse, ranging from extensions of conventional device physics to completely new approaches based upon molecular self-assembly, from developing new materials with dimensions on the nanoscale to investigating whether we can directly control matter on the atomic scale. There is much debate on the future implications of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology may be able to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in medicine, electronics, biomaterials and energy production. On the other hand, nanotechnology raises many of the same issues as any new technology, including concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and their potential effects on global economics, as well as speculation about various doomsday scenarios. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether specialregulation of nanotechnology is warranted.

MOCULAR MANUFACTURING Molecular manufacturing is the name given to the proposal that molecular machine systems will eventually be able to manufacture most objects, including large objects, from the molecule up, building complex products with atomic precision. The proposal that advanced nanotechnology will include artificial molecular machine systems capable of building complex systems to atomic precision has been controversial within the scientific community. In general, proponents have argued from the grounds of theoretical analysis coup with led the existence of multiple plausible implementation pathways from current technology, while opponents have been unimpressed with theoretical arguments in the absence of direct experimental demonstration of crucial milestones. If we rearrange the atoms in coal we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace elements) we can make computer chips.If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air we can make potatoes.

Todays manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of LEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together the way you'd like.

In the future, nanotechnology (more specifically, molecular nanotechnology or MNT) will let us take off the boxing gloves. We'll be able to snap together the fundamental building blocks of nature easily, inexpensively and in most of the ways permitted by the laws of nature. This will let us continue the revolution in computer hardware to its ultimate limits: molecular computers made from molecular logic gates connected by molecular wires. This new pollution free manufacturing technology will also let us inexpensively fabricate a cornucopia of new products that are remarkably light, strong, smart, and durable. "Nanotechnology" has become something of a buzzword and is applied to many pr oducts and technologies that are often largely unrelated to molecular nanotechnology. While these broader usages encompass many valuable evolutionary improvements of existing technology, molecular nanotechnology will open up qualitatively new and exponentially expanding opportunities on a historically unprecedented scale. We will use the word "nanotechnology" to mean "molecular nanotechnology". Nanotechnology will let us: Get essentially every atom in the right place. Make almost any structure consistent with the laws of physics that is specified in molecular detail. y Reduce manufacturing costs to little more than the cost of the required raw materials and energy. While technologies that lack one or more of these characteristics can be quite valuable, by definition they are not molecular nanotechnology.

y y

There are two more concepts commonly associated with nanotechnology: Positional assembly. Massive parallelism.

y y

Clearly, we would be happy with any method that simultaneously achieved the first three objectives. However, this seems difficult without using some form of positional assembly (to get the right molecular parts in the right places) and some form of massive parallelism (to keep the costs down). The need for positional assembly implies an interest in molecular robotics, e.g., robotic devices that are molecular both in their size and precision. These molecular scale positional devices are likely to resemble very small versions of their everyday macroscopic counterparts because both the macroscopic and the microscopic versions are trying to achieve the same objectives: the ability to flexibility and accurately hold, position and assemble parts. Positional assembly is frequently used in

normal macroscopic manufacturing today, and provides tremendous advantages. Imagine trying to build a bicycle with both hands tied behind your back! The idea of manipulating and positioning individual atoms and molecules is still new and takes some getting used to. However, as Feynmansaid in a classic talk in 1959: "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom." We need to apply at the molecular scale the concept that has demonstrated its effectiveness at the macroscopic scale: making parts go where we want by putting them where we want. A few robotic arms assembling molecular parts are going to take a long time to assemble anything large so we need lots of robotic arms: this is what we mean by massive parallelism. While earlier proposals achieved massive parallelism through self replication, today's "best guess" is that future molecular manufacturing systems will use some form of convergent assembly. In this process vast numbers of small parts are assembled by vast numbers of small robotic arms into larger parts, those larger parts are assembled by larger robotic arms into still larger parts, and so forth. If the size of the parts doubles at each iteration, we can go from one nanometer parts (a few atoms in size) to one meter parts (almost as big as a person) in only 30 steps. In this way, a nanofactory with many robotic arms in it can manufacture another nanofactory in a reasonable period of time.