Nanotechnology: What’s up with the Snake in our Boot?
Bringing up nanotechnology in casual conversations can be intimidating and even confusing. We get that it’s small technology, but what makes tiny things so interesting? And how does it affect or even contribute to everyday life?
Here’s a one-stop-shop debriefer for how nanotechnology thrives in our society today!
There’s a Snake in my Boot!
In the film Toy Story, cowboy sheriff Woody has the iconic catchphrase: “There’s a snake in my boot!”. He can never seem to shake off the tiny thing at the bottom of his shoe, and just like Woody with his small bothersome snake, we too want to uncover this small, but exciting technology. But what exactly is this curious “snake in the boot”?
Nanotechnology is defined as matter measuring between 1 and 100 nm [1]. If you were 1 nanometer, our fingernail’s thickness would equal around 6 million of you! That’s how small this field goes.
The idea of the miniaturization of things to make products and systems more efficient has existed for a long time. Take for example, the evolution of bulky computers we would store in large rooms back in the 1940s, to the portable computers powered by centimeter-small microchips we have installed now. The evolutions we see in the creation and improvement of our devices actually all move towards this compact, miniaturizing, nanotech mindset! Officially, the first concepts of engineering at the atomic scale were proposed by Richard Feynman in the 1950s [2]. It wasn’t called nanotechnology yet, but the revolutionary idea of manipulating particles at this minuscule scale to produce new properties and functions for novel systems and structures was brewing. At such a small scale, particles behave differently, and new techniques can help manufacture and produce desired outputs. Today, nanotechnology is incorporated into almost every field of science: chemistry, molecular biology, physics, engineering, materials science, medicine, and all their intersections.
Scientists and researchers have gone a long way when it comes to making faster, smaller, and smarter technology. But it’s only in this century that we started fully exploring its potential and expanding the research on this type of technology.
Reaching for the Sky!
Since Feynman’s early ideas of nanotechnology, the field progressed greatly as scientists continued to build on each other’s work. One important feat in this timeline is the creation of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope, an instrument that allows the imaging of surfaces at the atomic scale via electrical conduction that tunnels the electrons of an atom to overlap with the surface, and thus be “seen”. Building on this, the Atomic Force Microscope and Scanning Probe Microscope were developed, and are now the most commonly used tools of nanotech researchers today [3].
With tools like these, an important discovery about carbon was made. In 1985, it was found that the fourth most abundant element in the universe could form very stable honeycomb-looking spheres, otherwise known as Carbon 60, or fullerenes [1]. This is the third solid carbon allotrope (a variation of form and arrangement) to be discovered right after diamond and graphite. Sometime later, a member of the fullerene family was unearthed — hollow carbon nanotubes, whose strength and flexibility were found to be astronomically useful. This is where it gets interesting — these carbon nanotubes were determined to be about 400 times stronger than steel, but lighter and one-sixth denser in weight [6]!
The unique mechanical and high thermal conductivity properties of carbon nanotubes make them an ideal material to use for sporting goods, industrial textiles, biosensors, hydrogen storage cells, electrical-shielding applications, electron field emitters, transistors, lithium-ion batteries, and so much more [4]. In fact, one of their current applications is a spun fiber that is used in polymers and synthetics to improve their electrical, chemical, and mechanical properties. These carbon nanotubes can be formed using several methods, such as 1) inciting reactions in graphite using gas, 2) blasting it with lasers or plasma, or 3) electrical combustion [5]. One downside to the processing of these nanomaterials, however, is that they are very expensive to make — a problem that is tackled by scientists to this day.
Moving on to 2004, a more advanced class of carbon nano-materials was accidentally obtained during a purification process of single-walled carbon nanotubes [7]. These would be called C-dots due to their < 10 nm size. While carbon nanotubes are known for their strong but flexible and lightweight composition, C-dots are put on a pedestal due to not only their strong fluorescence potential but also their benignity, abundance, and inexpensiveness [1]. Photoluminescence is necessary in nanotechnology for labeling, bioimaging, and drug delivery purposes. Compared to the common semiconductor quantum dots and organic dyes, photoluminescent C-dots are preferred due to their high aqueous solubility, chemical inertness, low toxicity, high resistance to photobleaching, and commendable biocompatibility with various biological hosts [7].
The progress of the research surrounding this technology has been astoundingly exponential — soaring to new heights in the last few years, and with its ongoing pace, more and more discoveries and applications are foreseen in the future. Just looking around us, you will be able to identify subtle but numerous nanotechnologies already. In our bodies, we have RNA enzymes that carry out different important functions and therefore serve as natural nanomachines. In our lotions and sunscreens, there are chemicals that protect us from UV rays. In our smart devices, fluorescent nanomaterials allow LED displays to create images on a compact screen. In biomedicine, we have even more vast potential areas, including but not limited to cancer technology research.
To Infinity and Beyond!
As we create more and more sophisticated techniques of nanoparticle manipulation, it would be possible to change electrical conductivities, magnetic permeabilities, chemical reactivities, and more — allowing for the completion of tasks that would have been impossible to carry out with our bare hands, or the bulkier devices we have today. In its original sense, nanotechnology is creating materials, systems, and structures from the bottom up!
It’s ways away, but with the trajectory of our breakthroughs in nanotechnology, we’re not too far from creating things such as lightweight vehicles that save fuel, smart fabrics that incorporate electronic health monitoring or energy harvesting abilities, bioengineered enzymes that convert organic molecules and functional groups, or even nanorobots that solve microscopic malfunctions in machines and humans!
With this great promise of the ability to build just about anything, comes a great question surrounding the lines that must be drawn regarding medical concerns, security ramifications, and even moral dilemmas. What are we allowed to build and synthesize? And at what point do we just “let nature run its course”? As this field of science continues to grow we must continue answering these important questions alongside the pursuit of the many snakes in humanity’s boot!
Written by: Moira Lopez
Proofread by: Yovia Ogasawara and Lyra Tamayo
Art by: Moira Lopez
Resources
[1] Bayda, S., Adeel, Muhammad, Tuccinardi, T, Cordani, M., & Rizzolio, F. (2019, December 27). The History of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: From Chemical — Physical Applications to Nanomedicine. Molecules, 25(1), 112. doi: 10.3390/molecules25010112
[2] National Nanotechnology Initiative. (n.d.). Nanotechnology Timeline. Retrieved November 13, 2021, from https://www.nano.gov/timeline
[3] Binnig, G. (1990, October 16). Atomic Force Microscope and Method for Imaging Surfaces with Atomic Resolution. 4724318A. U.S. Patent.
[4] Kroto H.W., Heath J.R., O’Brien S.C., Curl R.F., Smalley R.E. (1985, November 14). C60: Buckminsterfullerene. Nature, 318, 162–163. doi: 10.1038/318162a0
[5] Iijima S. (1991, November 7). Helical microtubules of graphitic carbon. Nature, 354, 56–58. doi: 10.1038/354056a0
[6] Berger, M. Nanoengineering: The Skills and Tools Making Technology Invisible. Nanowerk LLC, Germany: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2020.
[7] Li, H., Kang, Z., Liu, Y., & Lee, S-T. (2012, August 29). Carbon nanodots: synthesis, properties and applications. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 46
