NANOTECHNOLOGY.

BASIC FACTS ABOUT

NANOTECHNOLOGY Working of Nanotechnology Nanotechnology in medicine Conclusions

BASIC FACTS ABOUT NANOTECHNOLOGY:

Nano (Greek : dwarf) refers to length scales that are of the order of one billionth of a metre. Or 1/80000th the size of human hair

Nano technology simply refers to devices and materials fabricated on this type of scale. To manipulate each individual atom of an object is the basic idea of Nanotechnology.
Such devices and materials can be built in two ways using Macroscopic Fabrication techniques. 1)Bottom up approach 2) Top Down approach Nano technology is not confined to limited number of fields. Every area of industry, Health and environment can be improved using this.

With the Discovery of techniques to organize, characterize and manipulate individual elements of matter as well as the increasing insights into self organization principles of these elements the world wide industrial conquest of nanoscale dimensions began.

The prospect of injecting patients with machines to make repairs, of rating super-strong and like materials for space exploration, of restoring environmental systems on a molecular level are all parts of the promise of Nanotechnolgy.

Working of Nanotechnology:
Atoms are the building blocks for all matter in our universe.

You and everything around are made of atoms. Nature has perfected the science of manufacturing matter molecularly. For instance, our bodies are assembled in a specific manner from millions of living cells. Cells are natures nanomachines.

Nanotechnology is a hybrid science combining engineering

and chemistry. Atoms and molecules stick together because they have complementary shapes that lock together, or charges that attract. Just like with magnets, a positively charged atom will stick to a negatively charged atom.

The goal nanotechnology is to manipulate atoms individually and place them in a pattern to produce a desired structure. There are three steps to achieving nanotechnology-produced goods:
Scientists must be able to manipulate individual atoms. This means that they will have to develop a technique to grab single atoms and move them to desired positions. In 1990, IBM researchers showed that it is possible to manipulate single atoms. They positioned 35 xenon atoms on the surface of a nickel crystal, using an atomic force microscopy instrument. These positioned atoms spelled out the letters IBM. You can view this nano-logo on this page. The next step will be to develop nanoscopic machines, called assemblers, that can be programmed to manipulate atoms and molecules at will. It would take thousand of years for a single assembler to produce any kind of material one atom at a time. Trillions of assemblers will be needed to develop products in a viable time frame.

 In order to create enough assemblers to build consumer goods, some nanomachines, called replicators, will be programmed to build more assemblers.

Trillions of assemblers and replicators will fill an area smaller than a cubic millimeter, and will still be too small for us to see with naked eye. Assemblers and replicators will work together like hands to automatically construct products, and will eventually replace all traditional labour methods. This will vastly decrease manufacturing costs, thereby making consumer goods plentiful, cheaper and stronger. In the next section, you will find out how nanotechnology will impact every facet of society, from medicines to computers.

Nano-technology in Medicine:
Nanomedicine may be defined as the monitoring, repair, construction and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures. However, the full promises of nanomedicine is unlikely to arrive until after the development of precisely controlled or programmable medical nanomachines and nanorobots which were first hypothesized by the Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman in 1959.

Methods for designing and constructing these devices currently being actively pursued by many universities and government organizations in the United States, Europe and Japan, and also in the private sector by nanotechnology startup companies and nanotechnology seed capital firms. One nanomachines are available, which are programmable and controllable microscale robots comprised of nanoscale parts fabricated to nanometer precision will allow medical doctors to execute curative and reconstructive procedures in the human body at the cellular and molecular levels. The ability to direct events in a controlled fashion at the cellular level is the key that will unlock the indefinite extension of human health and the expansion of human abilities.

CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology is an umbrella term that covers many areas of

research dealing with objects that are measured in nanometers.

In the next 50 years, machines will get increasingly smaller..
Nanomachines to manufacture consumer goods at the molecular

level, piecing together one atom or molecule at a time to make baseballs, telephones and cars (which is the goal of nanotechnology).
As televisions, airplanes and computers revolutionized the world in

the last century, scientists claim that nanotechnology will have an even more profound effect on the next century.