Chapter 2: Nanotechnology

Utilizing atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scales of matter for industrial applications is the focus of the field of nanotechnology, which is frequently abbreviated as nanotech. The term "molecular nanotechnology" refers to the specific scientific objective of accurately manipulating atoms and molecules for the creation of macroscale objects. The first and most common description of "nanotechnology" pertained to this particular technological goal. After some time had passed, the National Nanotechnology Initiative came up with a definition of nanotechnology that was more comprehensive. According to this definition, nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter in which at least one dimension has a scale ranging from 1 to 100 nanometers. This definition reflects the fact that quantum mechanical effects are important at this quantum-realm scale. As a result, the definition shifted from a particular technological goal to a research category inclusive of all types of research and technologies that deal with the special properties of matter which occur below the given size threshold. In other words, the definition became a research category. It is for this reason that the term "nanotechnologies," in both its singular and plural forms, as well as the term "nanoscale technologies," are often used to refer to a wide variety of studies and applications that share the characteristic of being very small.

The term "nanotechnology" refers to anything with dimensions on the nanoscale or smaller. Its application ranges from the creation of new materials with dimensions on the nanoscale to the direct control of matter on the atomic scale. Surface science, organic chemistry, molecular biology, semiconductor physics, and energy storage are just some of the scientific subfields that fall under its purview.

The potential repercussions of nanotechnology are now a topic of discussion among scientists. Nanotechnology has the potential to produce a large number of novel materials and technologies, each of which might have a wide variety of uses. Some examples of these applications include nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, biomaterials, energy generation, and consumer items. On the other side, nanotechnology brings up many of the same problems as any new technology, such as worries about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, as well as their possible implications on global economies, and speculation about a variety of other end-of-the-world scenarios. Because of these issues, advocacy organizations and governments throughout the world are now debating whether or not nanotechnology should be subject to specific regulation.

Richard Feynman, a well-known physicist, gave a talk titled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" in 1959. In this talk, he described the possibility of synthesis through the direct manipulation of atoms. This talk was the first public discussion of the ideas that would later become the foundation of nanotechnology.

In 1974, Norio Taniguchi was the first person to use the phrase "nanotechnology," despite the fact that the term was not well recognized at the time. K. Eric Drexler first used the term "nanotechnology" in his book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, which he published in 1986. In that book, Drexler proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler" that would be able to build a copy of itself and of other items of arbitrary complexity with atomic control. Drexler was inspired to use the term "nanotechnology" by the ideas that Richard Feynman had developed. Also in 1986, Drexler was a co-founder of The Foresight Institute, an organization that he is no longer associated with, with the goal of assisting the general public in becoming more aware of and knowledgeable about nanotechnology and its consequences.

In the 1980s, the field of nanotechnology emerged as a result of the convergence of Drexler's theoretical and public work, which developed and popularized a conceptual framework for nanotechnology, and high-visibility experimental advances that drew additional wide-scale attention to the prospects of atomic control of matter. Drexler's work developed and popularized a conceptual framework for nanotechnology. High-visibility experimental advances also drew additional wide-scale attention to the prospects of atomic control of matter. Two significant advances made in the 1980s were the spark that ignited the expansion of nanotechnology in the current age. First, the development of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981, which made it possible to see individual atoms and bonds in a way that had never been done before and in 1989 was successfully used to the process of manipulating individual atoms. Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, who worked on developing the microscope at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 for their work. During the same year, Binnig, Quate, and Gerber were also the inventors of the similar atomic force microscope.

Second, fullerenes were found in 1985 by Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996. These three scientists are credited with the discovery of fullerenes. This is why Iijima was awarded the very first Kavli Prize in Nanoscience back in 2008.

In 1960, A. Rose was the first person to suggest the idea of a nanolayer-base metal-semiconductor junction (M-S junction) transistor. In 1962, L. Geppert, Mohamed Atalla, and Dawon Kahng were the first people to actually manufacture one.

Governments have taken steps to promote and fund research into nanotechnology, such as in the United States with the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which formalized a size-based definition of nanotechnology and established funding for research on the nanoscale, and in Europe with the European Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development.

Around the middle of the 2000s, a surge of fresh and serious attention from the scientific community started. The production of nanotechnology roadmaps has given rise to a number of projects. These roadmaps focus on the atomically precise manipulation of matter and describe both present and predicted capabilities, aims, and applications.

2006 saw the development of the world's smallest nanoelectronic device, the 3 nm MOSFET, which was created by a team of Korean researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the National Nano Fab Center. The gate-all-around (GAA) FinFET technology was the foundation on which it was built.

Engineering of functioning systems on a molecular scale is what is meant by the term "nanotechnology." This contains both the currently ongoing projects as well as ideas that are farther along in their development. In its original context, the term "nanotechnology" refers to the anticipated capability of building things from the ground up utilizing methods and instruments that are now under development in order to produce finished goods with superior capabilities.

One nanometer (sometimes written as nm) is equal to one billionth.

or 10-9, to do with a meter.

By contrast, lengths of carbon-carbon bonds that are usual, or the distance between each of the atoms that make up a molecule, are between 0.12 and 0.15 nanometers in size; In addition, the diameter of a DNA double helix is around 2 nanometers.

To put things another way, the simplest forms of life composed of cells, the microorganisms belonging to the genus Mycoplasma, are around 200 nanometers in length.

According to the norm, According to the definition provided by the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the United States, the scale range of 1 to 100 nanometers is considered to be nanotechnology.

The size of the atoms determines the lowest limit, because hydrogen has the smallest atoms of any element (

due to the fact that nanotechnology must construct its gadgets from atoms and molecules, which have a kinetic diameter of roughly one fourth of a nanometer.

The upper limit is more or less arbitrary, but it is around the size below which phenomena that are not seen in bigger structures start to become visible and may be used in the nano device. This size is approximately the size of the smallest size below which the phenomena can be noticed.

In order to offer a fundamental scientific basis for nanotechnology, subfields of physics such as nanoelectronics, nanomechanics, nanophotonics, and nanoionics have developed significantly over the course of the last several decades.

When the scale of the system is reduced, certain phenomena are able to more clearly be seen. These include the statistical mechanical effects as well as the quantum mechanical effects, such as the "quantum size effect," in which the electronic properties of solids are altered when there is a significant reduction in particle size. Other examples include the "thermal mechanical effect," which occurs when there is a change in temperature. Moving from a macro to a micro perspective removes the possibility of this impact occurring. Quantum effects, on the other hand, have the potential to become substantial once the nanoscale size range is reached, often at distances of 100 nanometers or less, which is referred to as the "quantum world." In addition, a variety of physical characteristics, such as mechanical, electrical, optical, and so on, are altered when microscopic systems are compared to macroscopic ones. One example of this is how an increase in the ratio of a material's surface area to its volume may change its mechanical, thermal, and catalytic characteristics. Nanoionics is the study of the diffusion and reactions that occur at the nanoscale, as well as nanostructures, materials, and nanodevices that have rapid ion...