History and Overview of Nanotechnology; Nanofactories

History of Nanotechnology

A Short History of Nanotechnology

1959
Feynman gives after-dinner talk describing molecular machines building with atomic precision

1974
Taniguchi uses term "nano-technology" in paper on ion-sputter machining

1977
Drexler originates molecular nanotechnology concepts at MIT

1981
First technical paper on molecular engineering to build with atomic precision
STM invented

1985
Buckyball discovered

1986
First book published
AFM invented
First organization formed

1987
First protein engineered
First university symposium

1988
First university course

1989
IBM logo spelled in individual atoms
First national conference

1990
First nanotechnology journal
Japan's STA begins funding nanotech projects

1991
Japan''s MITI announces bottom-up "atom factory"
IBM endorses bottom-up path
Japan's MITI commits $200 million
Carbon nanotube discovered

1992
First textbook published
First Congressional testimony

1993
First Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for modeling a hydrogen abstraction tool useful in nanotechnology
First coverage of nanotech from White House
"Engines of Creation" book given to Rice administration, stimulating first university nanotech center

1994
Nanosystems textbook used in first university course
US Science Advisor advocates nanotechnology

1995
First think tank report
First industry analysis of military applications
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for synthesis of complex three-dimensional structures with DNA molecules

1996
$250,000 Feynman Grand Prize announced
First European conference
NASA begins work in computational nanotech
First nanobio conference

1997
First company founded: Zyvex
First design of nanorobotic system
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in computational nanotechnology and using scanning probe microscopes to manipulate molecules

1998
First NSF forum, held in conjunction with Foresight Conference
First DNA-based nanomechanical device
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for computational modeling of molecular tools for atomically-precise chemical reactions and for building molecular structures through the use of self-organization

1999
First Nanomedicine book published
First safety guidelines
Congressional hearings on proposed National Nanotechnology Initiative
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for development of carbon nanotubes for potential computing device applications and for modeling the operation of molecular machine designs

2000
President Clinton announces U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative
First state research initiative: $100 million in California
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for computational materials science for nanostructures and for building a molecular switch

2001
First report on nanotech industry
U.S. announces first center for military applications
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for theory of nanometer-scale electronic devices and for synthesis and characterization of carbon nanotubes and nanowires

2002
First nanotech industry conference
Regional nanotech efforts multiply
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for using DNA to enable the self-assembly of new structures and for advancing our ability to model molecular machine systems

2003
Congressional hearings on societal implications
Call for balancing NNI research portfolio
Drexler/Smalley debate is published in Chemical & Engineering News
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for modeling the molecular and electronic structures of new materials and for integrating single molecule biological motors with nano-scale silicon devices

2004
First policy conference on advanced nanotech
First center for nanomechanical systems
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for designing stable protein structures and for constructing a novel enzyme with an altered function

2005
At Nanoethics meeting, Roco announces nanomachine/nanosystem project count has reached 300
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for for designing a wide variety of single molecular functional nanomachines and for synthesizing macromolecules of intermediate sizes with designed shapes and functions

2006
National Academies nanotechnology report calls for experimentation toward molecular manufacturing
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in molecular computation and algorithmic self-assembly, and for producing complex two-dimensional arrays of DNA nanostructures

2007
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for construction of molecular machine systems that function in the realm of Brownian motion, and molecular machines based upon two-state mechanically interlocked compounds

2008
Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems released
Protein catalysts designed for non-natural chemical reactions
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in molecular electronics and the synthesis of molecular motors and nanocars, and for theoretical contributions to nanofabrication and sensing

2009
An improved walking DNA nanorobot
Structural DNA nanotechnology arrays devices to capture molecular building blocks
Design 'from scratch' of a small protein that performed the function performed by natural globin proteins
Organizing functional components on addressable DNA scaffolds
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for experimental demonstrations of mechanosynthesis using AFM to manipulate single atoms, and for computational analysis of molecular tools to build complex molecular structures

2010
DNA-based 'robotic' assembly begins
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded for work in single atom manipulations and atomic switches, and for development of quantum mechanical methods for theoretical predictions of molecules and solids

2011
First programmable nanowire circuits for nanoprocessors
DNA molecular robots learn to walk in any direction along a branched track
Mechanical manipulation of silicon dimers on a silicon surface

For more on the history of the nanotechnology concept, see:

"Nanotechnology: from Feynman to the Grand Challenge of Molecular Manufacturing", by C. Peterson in IEEE Technology and Society, Winter 2004. PDF [2.5 MB]

"Molecular Nanotechnology: the Next Industrial Revolution", by C. Peterson in IEEE Computer, January 2000.

Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology (by E. Regis, Little Brown, 1995).

"Nanotechnology: From Concept to R&D Goal", by C. Peterson, HotWired, 1995.

"Nanotechnology: Evolution of the Concept" by C. Peterson, in the book Prospects in Nanotechnology: Toward Molecular Manufacturing (ed. Markus Krummenacker and James Lewis, Wiley, 1995).




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An Overview of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology draws its name from the prefix "nano". A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter—a distance equal to two to twenty atoms (depending on what type of atom) laid down next to each other. Nanotechnology refers to manipulating the structure of matter on a length scale of some small number of nanometers, interpreted by different people at different times as meaning anything from 0.1 nm (controlling the arrangement of individual atoms) to 100 nm or more (anything smaller than microtechnology). At the small end of this scale, the structure is controlled to atomic precision—each atom is exactly where it should be for the optimum function of the material or the device. The Foresight Institute is focused on this small end of the scale: atomically-precise manufacturing or "molecular manufacturing".

Life is the Existence Proof for Atomically Precise Technology

Chemistry has of course always worked with atomic precision. Molecules are made from specific arrangements of specific numbers of specific types of atoms. Chemistry mostly deals with arrangements of several to several tens to several hundreds of atoms. Larger structures are made by linking together certain molecules into long chains—polymers. Billions of years before chemists discovered this trick to make plastics and synthetic fibers, nature used this strategy to invent life. The crucial molecules of life—RNA, proteins, and DNA—are long polymers each composed of a few types of subunit molecules linked together into a specific long sequence. Protein and some RNA molecules fold their long chains into specific 3D shapes that have specific functions. These and many other types of molecules form large complexes of molecules that associate to form subcellular components that make up cells, tissues, organs, and individuals. Taken together they perform the myriad functions, including thought and consciousness, that living organisms are capable of.

In biology, macromolecules self-assemble into the systems of molecular machines that cells and organisms comprise. Biology thus provides an existence proof for the myriad capabilities of self-assembled molecular machine systems. Advanced nanotechnology will augment self-assembly copied from biology with one additional tool: positional control of chemical synthesis. From Ralph Merkle:
Molecular Manufacturing: Adding Positional Control to Chemical Synthesis

Building to Atomic Precision

Chemistry builds molecules from precise arrangements of atoms. Biology builds cells and organisms from polymers composed of precise sequences of specific molecules that fold into specific shapes and associate in specific configurations with specific other biopolymers according to the information encoded in their sequences. Human ancestors began making crude stone tools about 2.5 million years ago. Succeeding species learned to make finer and more complex stone tools, and succeeding cultures of modern humans learned to build more complex and useful products as they learned ever finer control of the structure of matter. But it was not until the mid-20th century that a scientist asked what could we build if we could put atoms wherever we wanted them, consistent with the laws of physics and chemistry.

This level of technology was first described by Richard Feynman in 1959 in a visionary talk "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom". "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom." He asked "What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them…" He concluded "The problems of chemistry and biology can be greatly helped if our ability to see what we are doing, and to do things on an atomic level, is ultimately developed—a development which I think cannot be avoided." This concept was expanded and popularized in a 1986 book Engines of Creation by K Eric Drexler, who applied the term nanotechnology to Feynman's vision. Drexler styled nanotechnology as the ultimate manufacturing technology and described the unprecedented opportunities it will present in areas from medicine to space colonization, and also risks that could result from accidents or misuse of the technology. The Feynman-Drexler view of nanotechnology has also been termed molecular nanotechnology, or molecular manufacturing, or atomically precise productive nanosystems to distinguish it from broader definitions of less advanced forms of nanotechnology, already implemented in laboratories and in commerce, that control the structure of matter to coarser dimensions than atomic precision.
Feynman's Vision, Molecular Manufacturing, and Nanofactories

The term "nano-technology" had been coined in 1974 by Norio Taniguichi to describe semiconductor processes involving control on the order of a nanometer. Taniguichi was also looking toward atomic precision: "Nano-technology' mainly consists of the processing of separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by one atom or one molecule." ["On the Basic Concept of 'Nano-Technology'," Proc. Intl. Conf. Prod. Eng. Tokyo, Part II, Japan Society of Precision Engineering, 1974.]

Progress in Nanoscale Science and Technology

Confidence that atomically precise manufacturing will ultimately be possible is based upon physics based modeling, which Eric Drexler originally labeled exploratory engineering or theoretical applied science. Crucial to this optimism has been the explosion of progress in several areas of nanoscale science and technology during the 1980s. Much of this progress was highlighted at the Foresight Institute Conferences on Nanotechnology, beginning in 1989. To encourage and reward progress leading toward Feynman's goal for nanotechnology, the Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes were established in 1993.
A Short History of Nanotechnology
Nobel Paths to Nanotechnology (1987)
Foresight Institute Conferences on Nanotechnology
Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes

Laboratory successes in nanoscale science and technology were not only creating enabling technologies for the road to advanced nanotechnology, they were also creating abundant opportunities for current and near- to intermediate-term applications in better materials for consumer goods, sensors and devices, computer technology, energy, and medicine. The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies tracks "manufacturer-identified nanotechnology-based consumer products currently on the market". As of early 2011, "there are currently 1014 products, produced by 484 companies, located in 24 countries."

Since May of 2000, Foresight Institute's blog Nanodot has been tracking progress in enabling technologies leading to advanced nanotechnology and other emerging technology issues, and, to a lesser extent, more general progress in nanoscale science and technology. Foresight publications have also followed nanotechnology progress—the quarterly Foresight Update from June of 1987 through spring of 2007, and the email Update from June 2005 through the present. From June of 2005 through January of 2008, the Foresight Nanotechnology Challenges, followed progress in six areas of nanotechnology application that are particularly relevant to nanotechnology benefiting humanity.

Rapid progress in nanoscale science and technology during the 1980s and 1990s led to a consensus that US funding for nanoscale research and development should be greatly increased (see "Nobel Chemist, Others Issue Strong Call for National Nanotechnology Initiative"). The US National Nanotechnology Initiative was set up in 2001 and focuses on "understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications." The large majority of this support was not targeted to achieving the Feynman-Drexler vision of atomically precise manufacturing, leading to calls to balance the NNI research and development portfolio periodically "to ensure a range of low-, medium-, and long-term projects, as well as a wider range of risk" (see "Balancing the National Nanotechnology Initiative's R&D Portfolio"). Although no one argued against the importance of near- and medium-term projects, there was considerable skepticism in some sectors of the nanotechnology research community that the long-term goal of molecular manufacturing was attainable. Highlighting these different perspectives was a debate in 2003 between Drexler and Richard E. Smalley, a prominent early supporter of the NNI and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of fullerenes, published in Chemical & Engineering News. For an overview of the issues, see "Is the Revolution Real?" (2003) and "Nanotechnology: From Feynman to Funding", by K. Eric Drexler [PDF file, 80 KB], published in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 24, No. 1, February 2004, 21-27. In 2006, a report on the U.S. NNI from the National Academies' National Research Council called for experimentation to explore the potential of molecular manufacturing more complex than simple self-assembly.
Feasibility of Molecular Manufacturing

The question of whether or not advanced nanotechnology (molecular manufacturing or atomically precise productive nanosystems) is feasible will be settled by the development and successful implementation of a roadmap from current capabilities in nanotechnology to advanced systems. Working from 2005 through 2007, the Foresight Institute and Battelle, with the support of the Waitt Family Foundation, produced the first such roadmap, the "Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems".




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From Feynman to Nanofactories Chemistry builds molecules from precise arrangements of atoms. Biology builds cells and organisms from polymers composed of precise sequences of specific molecules that fold into specific shapes. Human ancestors began making crude stone tools about 2.5 million years ago. Succeeding species learned to make finer and more complex stone tools, and succeeding cultures of modern humans learned to build more complex and useful products as they learned ever finer control of the structure of matter. But it was not until the mid-20th century that a scientist asked what could we build if we could put atoms wherever we wanted them, consistent with the laws of physics and chemistry: "What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them …" —Richard Feynman 1959 Arranging Atoms as We Want Them Feynman's vision was elaborated by Foresight's co-founder, Eric Drexler (who is no longer associated with Foresight), in a 1986 book Engines of Creation. If human technology could be based upon putting atoms where we want them rather than upon handling "atoms in unruly herds", the consequences would be enormous. Devices currently made from strong materials—diamond, silicon, ceramics, metals—are fabricated with features far coarser than atomic precision so the complexity of these devices is severely limited compared to the complexity of biological structures. Biological systems are wondrously complex, but made from relatively weak and perishable materials because the molecular folding and associations are only stable in limited ranges of temperature and other conditions. What if atoms could be arranged into arbitrarily complex configurations connected with dense networks of strong covalent bonds? Applying known physics in his foundational work Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation to explore the limits of various fields of technology, Drexler's conclusions included the following. Nanofactories Would Build with Reactive Molecular Fragments The principles of mechanical engineering could be implemented on the nanometer scale, working in a vacuum, to position reactive molecular fragments to sub-nanometer precision so as to add specific atoms or small groups of atoms to an atomically precise location on a workpiece so as to build atomically precise, complex parts and systems. Through a bootstrapping process, it would be possible to build a desktop-scale nanofactory capable of inexpensively producing complex products built to atomic precision, such as a billion-CPU laptop computer. The operation of such a nanofactory is illustrated in a short animated film produced in 2005 by Eric Drexler and John Burch. The film is described here and on Drexler's web site. The 86.1 MB movie is here: "Productive Nanosystems: from Molecules to Superproducts" Because machine motions on the nanometer scale are a million times more rapid than comparable machine motions on human scale, and because the atoms are assembled in a several step hierarchical manner, complex products made from trillions of trillions of atoms could be assembled in mere hours or days. The proposal for nanofactories begins with quantum chemistry and extensive computational simulation of the reactions necessary to add atoms to the workpiece, and continues with extensive systems engineering and multiscale physics, finite element analysis, etc. to analyze the various stages of assembling the product. What Nanofactories Could Do The advent of nanofactories will have a number of immense consequences. Here are just a few. Greatly Reduce the Costs of Most Manufactured Products The cost of most manufactured products, especially the most complex and currently most expensive ones, like computer chips, will be reduced toward a bottom limit set by the costs of the raw materials (cheap organic feedstocks) and energy; i.e., tens of cents per kilogram. Of course, this does not include costs arising from intellectual property, legal, regulatory, etc. factors. Perhaps the most significant cost component will be product design. Consequently, since its founding, Foresight has been also extremely interested in the development of machine intelligence, or AI (see, for example "Dimensions of Progress"). There are different aspects of AI or AGI, for Artificial General Intelligence, as it is often termed, that are of interest when considering the impacts of emerging transformative technologies, but the aspect that is most relevant here does not depend on reproducing the full range of human cognition in computers. Instead, what would be most useful is machine systems for engineering and technical work that could design new nanofactory products thousands of times faster than could teams of human engineers. Such systems would be facilitated by the ability to manufacture computers that are thousands of times more powerful and simultaneously thousands of times cheaper than are current computers. Thus progress in nanotechnology and in AGI will be mutually accelerating. Greatly Reduce the Doubling Time for Capital Formation The doubling time for capital formation will be reduced to mere days or less. Among the products that a nanofactory will be able to manufacture is another nanofactory. Given the proper legal environment, the perfection of the first nanofactory could quickly lead to nanofactories in every home on the planet. Eliminate Industrial Chemical Pollution Chemical pollution from industrial processes will be essentially eliminated. Because a nanofactory guides every atom in the feedstock on a defined trajectory into either the final product or into properly packaged waste (which would often be pure water), there would be no polluting atoms released into the environment. Lower Energy Costs A very wide range of materials with superior properties will produce efficient solar cells cheap and durable enough to use in roofing and paving for sidewalks and roads so that solar energy will produce a bounteous energy supply without environmental degradation. Energy costs will no longer limit economic growth. Strong, Light Materials Will Open the Space Frontier Building materials 50-100 times stronger and lighter than steel will produce inexpensive personal spacecraft comparable to a van able to carry a family and its luggage to earth orbit. The space frontier will be truly opened and the human settlement of the solar system will commence. Medical Nanorobots will Cure Diseases and Reverse Aging The ability to design and build inexpensive microscopic robots opens the road to producing fleets of trillions of medical nanorobots that could be introduced into the human body to cure specific diseases by performing cellular and molecular surgery, repair specific injuries, or monitor and patrol the body to guard against disease and to reverse the ravages of aging. Such cellular repair machines were proposed in Drexler's early work and the topic has received intense attention since the early 1990s from Robert A. Freitas Jr., author of the Nanomedicine book series. Foresight has worked with Freitas since the late 1990s to showcase the potential of nanomedical robots: Nanomedicine Nanomedicine Art Gallery Among the many nanomedical robot systems that Freitas has designed, decades in advance of our ability to produce nanofactories to manufacture such microscopic robots, is a system that will allow a patient to instantly communicate with the nanomedical robots monitoring and safeguarding her health. Based upon Freitas's designs, Gina Miller has produced a short animation to illustrate how such a system would work. Dermal Display animation Version of the animation narrated by Freitas A very recent update and summary by Freitas of the potential applications of medical nanorobotics has been placed on his web site, as noted in this post on our blog Nanodot. Potential for Economic and Political Disruption The capabilities that nanofactories will enable have the potential to produce massive economic and political instabilities. Therefore, from its beginnings, Foresight has had the dual purpose of promoting the development of nanotechnology and of studying the potential problems that could arise so as to maximize the benefits of the technology to improve the human condition and to minimize any downsides. Public Policy