Promise of Nanotechnology Designing and Term Paper

Also, in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, prevention of restenosis (post stent placement) and lung diseases, nanotechnology offers great scope for early diagnosis and effective drug delivery. In the case of blood diseases, systemic cytotoxicity could be reduced by targetting drugs to lymphocytes. Nanotechnology offers such targeted drug delivery system. [Buxton, 2006]

Electronics

Nanotechnology will usher a quantum leap in computing. In fact, with nanotechnology quantum computing will be a reality very soon. Computers based on nanowires or nanotubes would have super-computing power but still be handheld. Carbon nanotubes are highly conductive and are better than copper. They also have semi-conducting properties. Thus far, the realization of building nanoscale electronic circuits using carbon nanotubes had been a problem. However, researchers at Caltech have already designed and built 'nanowire-based circuits'. Dr. Hongjie Dai, professor at Stanford University says "the move to CMOS with nanowires is important if nanowires are to be used for future electronics applications." [Kevin Bullis]

Green Nano

Environmental considerations are at the center of our growing world and nano technology offers the promise of not only environment friendly production but also the possibility of environmental decontamination using engineered nanospheres. Recent research by Lehigh University has attested that nanoscale iron could clean up groundwater and contaminated soil by as much as 96%. Nanospehres or molecular cages can be designed to trap environmentally toxic substances with promises of environmental decontamination. [Eva Gutierrez]

Aerospace

Carbon nanotubes are the focus of aerospace industry because of their special electrical and mechanical properties. They are 100 times stronger than steel at one sixth the weight. Several studies have shown that carbon nanotubes are ideal building material because of their high tensile strength and low weight. Further, the high conductive nature of carbon nanotubes makes them highly suitable for aviation electronics. [Belluccia et.al] as Dr. Bourne, from the NRC Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences (NRC-SIMS) in Ottawa says, "If we can show that these carbon nanotube composites can perform as expected in these applications, then this will go a long way to validating their use in the really big market - aerospace." [NRC]

Conclusion

Nanotechnology represents a huge wave in the world of science and technology with its applications extending into multiple domains.Designing and developing products at the molecular level offers a wide range of choices that could be beneficially harnessed for a variety of applications. Nanotechnology offers an entirely new dimension of medical diagnostics and drug delivery promising a new ray of hope for patients with chronic conditions that have poor prognosis with conventional therapy. The field of electronics is also bound to witness a huge leap with the nanoscale circuits resulting in the possibility of handheld supercomputers in the near future. In future, we might be able to mass-produce carbon nanotubes which would create a great revolution in the electronics and aerospace industries. There is still plenty of research to be done before embracing nanotechnology, as it is not without potential downsides as we have witnessed in the case of the GM crops. However, despite these challenges, it is hoped that the frontier of nanotechnology would develop fast and become the way of the future.

Bibliography

Edwards, Steven a (Jan 2006), 'The Nanotech Pioneers: Where are they taking us? ' Wiley VCH.

Diane Greer, (2007), 'The Promise of Nanotechnology', in Business, July-August, Vol. 29, No. 4, p. 18, JG Press. Available Online at, http://www.jgpress.com/inbusiness/archives/_free/001436.html

Buxton, Dennis, (Mar 2006), 'The promise of nanotechnology for heart, lung and blood diseases', Expert opinion on drug delivery, Vol 3, No 2, PP 173 -175, Informa Healthcare.

Avraham Rasooly and James Jacobson, (Apr, 2006), 'Development of biosensors for Cancer clinical testing', Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Vol 21, issue 10, Pg. 1851-1858

Constantino L. et.al (2005), "Peptide-derivatized biodegradable nanoparticles able to Cross the blood-brain barrier," Journal of Controlled Release, 108(1):84-96.

Vince Dollard, "Gold Nanoparticle probes may allow earlier cancer detection," Accessed 26th Dec 2007, available at http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi-story_id=27121

Kevin Bullis, 'Nanowire Computing made practical," Accessed Dec 26th 2007, Available online at, http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/17534/page2/

Eva Gutierrez, "Privacy Implications of Nanotechnology," Accessed Dec 27th 2007, available at http://epic.org/privacy/nano/

Belluccia et.al, 2004, "Composite Materials based on Carbon Nanotubes for Aerospace Applications," ICEM2004.

NRC, "Building the perfect hockey stick or Aircraft: Carbon Nanotubes," Accessed Dec 27th 2007, available at http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/highlights/2005/0507carbon_nanotubes_e.html.....