Nanotechnology is a hybrid science combining engineering, chemistry, and biology in certain applications. The prefix nano- refers to a billionth part of a unit. The Atom is the building block for all matter in our universe and is the basic unit within nanotechnology. You and everything around you 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 nature's nanomachines. 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 of nanotechnology is to manipulate atoms individually and place them in a pattern to produce a desired structure.Ý Using nanomachines, millions of these atoms can be pieced together by to produce specific products. Already, nanotechnologists have built gears and rotors far thinner than a human hair and tiny molecular motors only 50 atoms long. Imagine having the ability to manipulate the individual atoms of an object. That's the basic idea of nanotechnology, and many scientists believe that we are only a few decades away from achieving it on a large scale.
Photo
courtesy NASA, Ames
Nanogears
no more than a nanometer wide could be used to construct a matter
compiler, which could be fed raw material to arrange atoms and build a
macro-scale structure.
Contact Information
TEAM
1
Warren
Collier
warren_collier@bus.emory.edu
Thomas
Jones
thomas_jones@bus.emory.edu
Jay
Lyle
jay_lyle@bus.emory.edu
Isaac
Mizrahi
isaac_mizrahi@bus.emory.edu
Subbarao Varahabhotla subbarao_varahabhotla@bus.emory.edu