SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND

SOCIETY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
REPORTED BY:
GEROME L. AMADOR
BSED I
 WHAT IS
NANOTECHNOLOGY?
 According to the dictionary, nanotechnology is the branch of technology
that deals with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometers, especially
the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules.
 Nanotechnology is science, engineering, and technology conducted at the
nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers.
Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the study and application of extremely
small things and can be used across all the other science fields, such as chemistry,
biology, physics, materials science, and engineering.
 HOW IT STARTED?
The ideas and concepts behind nanoscience and nanotechnology started with a
talk entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” by physicist Richard
Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at the California Institute of
Technology (CalTech) on December 29, 1959, long before the term nanotechnology
was used. In his talk, Feynman described a process in which scientists would be able
to manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules. Over a decade later, in his
explorations of ultraprecision machining, Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term
nanotechnology. It wasn't until 1981, with the development of the scanning
tunnelling microscope that could "see" individual atoms, that modern
nanotechnology began.
RICHARD FEYNMAN
 PROFESSOR
NORIO TANAGUCHI
 In this talk, Feynman, a physicist at Caltech, drew attention to the subject by
commenting that in the year 2000 people would look back and wonder why no one
"seriously moved in this direction" toward "a staggeringly small world that is below"
until the time this article was written, presented, and published. Introducing the
subject further, he identified that new field of physics as "the problem of
manipulating and controlling things on a small scale," a concept now known as the
science of nanotechnology.
 It’s hard to imagine just how small nanotechnology is. One nanometer is a
billionth of a meter, or 10-9 of a meter. Here are a few illustrative examples:
• There are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch
• A sheet of newspaper is about 100,000 nanometers thick
• On a comparative scale, if a marble were a nanometer, then one meter would be
the size of the Earth
 Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve the ability to see and to control
individual atoms and molecules. Everything on Earth is made up of atoms—the
food we eat, the clothes we wear, the buildings and houses we live in, and our
own bodies.
 But something as small as an atom is impossible to see with the naked eye.
In fact, it’s impossible to see with the microscopes typically used in a high
school science classes. The microscopes needed to see things at the nanoscale
were invented relatively recently—about 30 years ago. Once scientists had the
right tools, such as the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and the atomic
force microscope (AFM), the age of nanotechnology was born.
 Although modern nanoscience and nanotechnology are quite new, nanoscale
materials were used for centuries.
Nanoscale materials have been used for over a thousand years. For example,
nanoscale gold was used in stained glass in Medieval Europe and nanotubes were
found in blades of swords made in Damascus. However, ten centuries passed before
high-powered microscopes were invented, allowing us to see things at the nanoscale
and begin working with these materials.
The South rose window of Notre Dame Cathedral

Vibrant sta
ined glass windows in
European cathedrals
owed their rich colors to
nanoparticles of gold
chloride and other metal
oxides and chlorides;
gold nanoparticles also
acted as
photocatalytic air purifi
ers.
 “Damascus” saber blades contained carbon nanotubes and cementite
nanowires—an ultrahigh-carbon steel formulation that gave them strength,
resilience, the ability to hold a keen edge, and a visible moiré pattern in the
steel that give the blades their name.
 Today's scientists and engineers are finding a wide variety of ways to
deliberately make materials at the nanoscale to take advantage of their enhanced
properties such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of light
spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity than their larger-scale counterparts.
 Scientists currently debate 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 nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, biomaterials energy
production, and consumer products. 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,[9] 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 special
regulation of nanotechnology is warranted.
 TWO MAIN APPROACH USED IN
NANOTECHNOLOGY

• Bottom-up approach
These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies.

• Top-down approach
These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their
assembly.
Some Nanotechnology-based
products in the market
 Advantages and Disadvantages of Nanotechnology
While nanotechnology is seen as the way of the future and is a technology that a
lot of people think will bring a lot of benefit for all who will be using it, nothing is
ever perfect and there will always be pros and cons to everything. The advantages
and disadvantages of nanotechnologycan be easily enumerated, and here are some
of them:
 Advantages of Nanotechnology

To enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of nanotechnology, let us

first run through the good things this technology brings:
• Nanotechnology can actually revolutionize a lot of electronic products,
procedures, and applications. The areas that benefit from the continued
development of nanotechnology when it comes to electronic products include
nano transistors, nano diodes, OLED, plasma displays, quantum computers,
and many more.
•Nanotechnology can also benefit the energy sector. The development of more
effective energy-producing, energy-absorbing, and energy storage products in
smaller and more efficient devices is possible with this technology. Such items
like batteries, fuel cells, and solar cells can be built smaller but can be made to
be more effective with this technology.
• Another industry that can benefit from nanotechnology is the manufacturing sector
that will need materials like nanotubes, aerogels, nano particles, and other similar
items to produce their products with. These materials are often stronger, more
durable, and lighter than those that are not produced with the help of
nanotechnology.
•In the medical world, nanotechnology is also seen as a boon since these can help
with creating what is called smart drugs. These help cure people faster and without
the side effects that other traditional drugs have. You will also find that the research
of nanotechnology in medicine is now focusing on areas like tissue regeneration,
bone repair, immunity and even cures for such ailments like cancer, diabetes, and
other life threatening diseases.
 Disadvantages of Nanotechnology
When tackling the advantages and disadvantages of nanotechnology, you will
also need to point out what can be seen as the negative side of this
technology:
•Included in the list of disadvantages of this science and its development is the
possible loss of jobs in the traditional farming and manufacturing industry.
•You will also find that the development of nanotechnology can also bring about the
crash of certain markets due to the lowering of the value of oil and diamonds due to
the possibility of developing alternative sources of energy that are more efficient and
won’t require the use of fossil fuels. This can also mean that since people can now
develop products at the molecular level, diamonds will also lose its value since it
can now be mass produced.
•Atomic weapons can now be more accessible and made to be more powerful and
more destructive. These can also become more accessible with nanotechnology.
•Since these particles are very small, problems can actually arise from the inhalation of
these minute particles, much like the problems a person gets from inhaling minute
asbestos particles.
•Presently, nanotechnology is very expensive and developing it can cost you a
lot of money. It is also pretty difficult to manufacture, which is probably why
products made with nanotechnology are more expensive.
•Disadvantage to privacy and security.
Thank You!!!

Reported by: Gerome L. Amador