Peterborough, N.H. - When the notion of nanotechnology first hit public consciousness a decade ago, exciting concepts of molecular-scale nanobots performing miraculous feats of engineering-or, in the nightmare scenario, self-replicating until they dominated the earth-seemed to be within reach. But the vision has since been scaled back considerably, with funded projects looking at the next generation of semiconductor manufacturing and with companies marketing nanocluster solutions for building new materials.
A genuine nanoscale fabrication capability might arrive soon that would transform industrial society, though not in the fashion initially envisioned, according to a study by Chris Phoenix, director of research at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (New York). Phoenix proposes a desktop nanofabrication system that could build industrial components from the molecular level up under programmable control. The concept blends traditional mass-production techniques with an assembler that would use a combination of chemistry and physical mechanics to assemble objects from individual atoms.
Such fabricators, Phoenix believes, could arrive as soon as 2010 and certainly before 2020.
Pivotal system
The key component that's still needed to ramp up nanofactories rapidly is a nanoscale fabricator that could itself build other nanoscale fabricators. This pivotal nanofabricator would be designed using mechanosynthesis, a process that operates at the atomic level using atomic-force microscope techniques to position components and molecular milling systems to shape objects at that scale. The first step in building such a system was demonstrated last year at Osaka University by a research group that used an AFM to pick up silicon atoms on a surface and move them to any desired location.
The significance of the experiment was that no special chemical or physical properties were required of the atoms in order to complete the operation. IBM researchers had earlier demonstrated the ability to move atoms with a scanning tunneling microscope tip. But that scheme required an electric field, and the substrate had to be a conductor. Mechanosynthesis aims to enable a general ability to manipulate materials.
Once a basic fabricator has been built, it would be able to build a small number of copies of itself. Those copies could be aligned to perform a series of nanofabrication steps, just as conventional factories perform specialized operations and then pass the assembly along to the next station.
The assembly process then could be used to create fabricators that would operate on a larger scale; for example, designer molecules could be created. A hierarchy of machines could be created wherein the machines would operate at successively larger scales.
That hierarchy of machines would be assembled into a desktop-sized unit that would have software input for controlling the factory and special containers of basic materials used for manufacturing.
Phoenix believes rapid development would follow the creation of the first nanofabricator, since the remaining steps are well-known from conventional factory design. In addition, nanofactories could be put to work building more nanofactories, so the technology would spread quickly, with perhaps only a year passing from the first nanofactory to worldwide deployment.
It may seem impractical to build materials from the atomic level up, since there is such a huge number of atoms in objects on the human scale. Small-scale machines move at extremely high speed, however, and biology is one example of nanofabrication that produces working systems-ranging in size from bacteria to blue whales-in a reasonable time, Phoenix pointed out.
Public's misconceptions
The nanobot concept has blinded the public to the more practical routes to nanofabrication, said Mike Treder, executive director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. "Confusion about terms, fueled by science fiction, has distorted the truth about advanced nanotechnology. Nanobots are not needed for manufacturing, but continued misunderstanding may hinder research into highly beneficial technologies and discussion of the real dangers," Treder wrote.
The full report is available at crnano.org/BD-Nanobots.htm.
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