NANOTECH INNOVATIONS

Columns, pipes, bearings and springs are a few common ways that engineers have made use of the geometric shape known as a 'cylinder.' The utility of this shape is apparent in architecture, plumbing and mechanical devices. Carbon nanotubes are molecular cylinders that are rapidly extending our ability to fabricate nanoscale devices by providing molecular probes, pipes, wires, bearings and springs.Their strength as structural supports comes from their sturdy molecular structure, which looks like what one would get if one could roll a two dimensional sheet of graphite into a three dimensional cylinder.

The limit to how long they can be is unknown, thus aerospace scientists are seriously considering using them as cables extending into space, an idea that is not possible with traditional ropes since they would break under their own weight. Furthermore, carbon nanotubes can easily be cut into sections as small as a few nanometers . One of the first important applications of carbon nanotubes has been in the fabrication of sharp, strong and functionalized AFM probe tips.

The hollow nature of nanotubes allow them to function as pipes for transporting and molding atoms and molecules. Furthermore, the tubes come in insulating, semiconducting and conducting form, meaning that they can also be used as molecular wires and circuits . Whats more, capillary induced filling of the nanotubes with other materials further extends the diversity of nanowires that can be fabricated.

The electronic properties of carbon nanotubes are directly related to their shape, making them an important Nano-Electromechanical System (NEMS). For example, the feasibility of a nanotube-based random access memory device with a memory density around 100 gigabytes/cm2 and an operation frequency around 100 gigahertz has recently been developed at Harvard University.In addition to their high aspect ratio (meaning long and thin) and particle transport capabilities, carbon nanotubes can also function as durable bearings and springs. Nanotubes can be fabricated in two forms: single-wall nanotubes (SWNT) or multi-wall nanotubes (MWNT). While a SWNT consists of only a single cylinder, a MWNT consists of several (between 2 and 30) concentric tubes, each with a specific diameter. Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley have recently demonstrated that a MWNT can act as a molecular bearing when one of the inner tubes rotates, or as a molecular spring when an inner tube is pulled out, causing the MWNT to stretch in a way similar to a telescope .

The consumer world is exploding with “nanotechnology enhanced” products. Consumer products is an area where the experts are saying the most immediate nanotechnology impacts will be made and recognized by the majority of people in the world. Currently there are numerous products on the market that are the result of nanotechnology.For the sporting enthusiast, we have tennis balls that last longer, tennis rackets that are stronger, golf balls that fly straighter, nano ski wax that is easier to apply and more effective than standard wax, and bowling balls that are harder; and these products are just scratching the surface.

These products all use nanostructured materials to give them enhanced performance. Speaking of scratching the surface, we also have nano car wax that fills in those tiny cracks more effectively and gives you a shinier vehicle. There are also nano products available to keep your eyewear and other optical devices cleaner, dryer, and more durable. In the clothing world, we have pants that repel water and won’t stain shirts and shoe inserts that keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and nano socks that don’t “stink” due to the inclusion of nanotech materials (nanosized sliver particles).

Nano-ceramic coatings are being utilized on photo quality picture paper to deliver sharper, higher quality “homemade” digital photo reproductions on your ink jet printer. How about that DVD you watched last night? Any idea how big the features on that now ubiquitous product are? DVD “bumps” to store information at 320 nanometers wide/The world of electronics has been using many of the key methods shared by other nanotechnology disciplines for many years. As an example, think of the evolution of the video game.

Nanotechnology has enabled arcade size video games of yesteryear like Pong, Frogger, and PacMan to be replaced with very sophisticated home Playstations, X-Boxes, and Game Cubes that play “life like” Madden 2005, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo 2 video games. There are also a tremendous amount of other electronic applications out there that are effecting our every day lives. Just take a trip to your local electronics mega-store and you will see a multitude of these including: faster and more powerful computers, palm pilots (blackberries), flash drives, digital cameras and displays, cell phones, LCDs, LEDs, MP3’s, electronic ink displays, thin film batteries, and flexible electronics to name a few. All of these applications are possible and affordable due to the ability to work effectively and efficiently at the nano-scale.

The biotech world also has many real world applications currently in use or under development that are, or will be, affecting our quality of life. Bandages embedded with silver nanoparticles are coming of age in the wound healing arena. And We now have drug delivery via a patch. A variety of time release thin films are now utilized on implantations into the human body (for example screws, joints, and stents) and these films are affecting the long term effectiveness of these devices,. Respiration monitors utilizing nano-materials have been developed that are many times more sensitive than previous state of the art technology.

Man-made skin is a nanofabricated network and is presently in use for skin graft applications. Some other nanotechnology applications which are currently under development in the biotech world are diabetic insulin biocapsules, pharmaceuticals utilizing “bucky ball” technology to selectively deliver drugs, and cancer therapies using targeted radioactive biocapsules.The world around us is filled with applications that nanotechnology makes possible. Don’t believe it? Look around! You won’t have to look far before these applications become evident to you. Nanotechnology is influencing the development of a wide variety of very diverse fields; among these are electronics, biotechnology, and consumer applications. From tennis balls to bandages to palm pilots, nanotechnology is making a significant impact on the jobs we work at and the products that we enjoy.

As devices become smaller the principles of quantum mechanics become more and more imperative. Many new theoretical ideas have come into view and fundamental quantum physics researches have progressed in leaps and bounds over the last few years.

Consequently, features of genuine Quantum Information Processing could soon begin to be feasible commercially. Quantum Information Processing (QIP) is a major area for research materials such as Gallium Nitride (GaN) or diamond-like-Carbon which can be potentially renovated into efficient devices.

Quantum computing which was suggested in 1970s completely relies on quantum physics, which permits the atoms and nuclei to work together as quantum bits or qubits and to be the computers processor and memory. Qubits can execute calculations exponentially faster than conventional computers. One important aspect of the communication sector is the security of information exchange. As the life is going to be networked in all sectors it is crucial to give more emphasis on the confidentiality of the official as well as personal mails. Quantum computing provides us unlimited processing power and secure communications. Those days have come to reality, when we can decode the encrypted conversations by terrorists or others. The compactness and the rapidness were the main achievements that the new developments in this era have brought out. The miniaturization as well as fast and rapid satellite communications, wireless LAN systems, cellular phones etc. are possible only because of the smart nano materials.

Now the science and technology has developed to such an extent that a group of scientists were able to flip the electron and they noticed a current change associated with it. They have tried to flip a single electron upside down in an ordinary commercial transistor chip. That was the beginning of the quantum computers where a single electron spin represents a quantum bit, the fundamental building block of a quantum computer. It was amazing that the conventional silicon technology was sufficient and powerful enough to accommodate the future electronic requirements like quantum computing, which will depend on spin. Another recent approach of Jiang and Xiao was that to shine microwave radio frequency to flip the spin of electron. The experiments last but a fraction of second, but required years of work to reach this point.

With 100 transistors, each containing one of these electrons, we could have the implicit information storage that corresponds to all of the hard disks made in the world this year, multiplied by the number of years the universe has been around. As we have discussed quantum computation makes use of atoms as a basis for computation. Unlike classical logical devices, which only exist in two states (0 or 1), atoms can have three states (0 or 1 or 01 where the latter is a superposition of the first two states). Recently developed DNA computing provides an example of long term information storage. It is very compact and replicable; however it is not very fast. So its use as a model for information processing seems to be limited. Even in biological systems short term information storage is an energy consuming process. One example is the brain activity. This information storage timescales are very low when compared with microelectronics. Quantum structure electronic devices (QSDs) can confine electrons into regions of less than 20 nm, enhancing their performance.

A principal aim of nanotechnology is to produce threedimensionally confined quantum structure electronic devices such as quantum wire and quantum dot devices. Some successful devices in this direction are quantum well lasers for telecommunications; High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) for low noise, high gain microwave applications; and Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs), for data communications, sensors, encoding and so on. Other application gadgets based on quantum dots, are on the verge of commercialisation.