Monday, December 2, 2002		Feature

THE world today is on the brink of a technological revolution it cannot fathom. In the near future, a supercomputer will be as big as a human cell, a four-person, and surface-to-orbit spacecraft no larger or more expensive than a family car. Soon, every person on the planet will be introduced to a new, more powerful industrial revolution capable of bringing wealth, health and education without pollution. This is the promise of the new emerging technology called nanotechnology. Just as computers reproduce information at minimal cost, efforts are underway to invent devices that manufacture consumer products at almost no cost by treating atoms discretely, like computers treat bits of information. This will allow automatic production of consumer goods without traditional labour, like a Xerox machine that produces unlimited copies without a human retyping the original information.

Nanotechnology is molecular manufacturing, or more simply, building things from one atom or molecule at a time with programmed nanoscopic robot arms. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter (10-9 meters). More precisely, it deals with particles of the size of 1 to 100 nanometers. Utilising the well-understood chemical properties of atoms and molecules, nanotechnology proposes the construction of novel molecular devices possessing extraordinary properties. The trick is to manipulate atoms individually and place them exactly where needed to produce the desired structure.

Nanotechnology is ushering in the era of self-replicating machinery and self-assembling consumer goods made from cheap raw atoms. It has been confused with two things. First, the miniaturisation approach that has been the hallmark of microprocessor manufacturers, like Intel. Definitely, the idea is not to cram maximum possible technology in the minimum possible space. Second, contrary to the popular perception, the goal of nanotechnology is not to conquer death, but to improve our lives.

An embedded system is an area where a lot of nanotechnology projects are currently active. For example, if you want to design a chip to fit into your fingertip to control a music system, the solution lies with nanotechnology. Today, the best storage devices are capable of a memory capacity of 2 gigabits per square centimetre, whereas this technology has made possible densities up to 80 gigabits per square centimetre. In fact, IBM has come up with a drive called micro drive, which has 1 GB memory capacity in a matchbox-sized drive that uses much of memory and calls it millipede technology. With nanotechnology, new classes of optical switches are vying to usher in more efficient communication networks. Experiments are being conducted to integrate tuneable lasers with optical switches, to help convert individual data packets from one wavelength to another in just nanoseconds. This is a dramatic departure from conventional microelectronics.