Nanotech Products: The big 'small' future
By Renjith VP, SiliconIndia   |   Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 14:03 IST   |    3 Comments
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Nanotech Products: The big 'small' future
Bangalore: When globalization became a widespread phenomenon, we said the world was getting smaller. And now with the latest buzzword 'nanotechnology' or 'nanotech', the things we use are getting smaller. When wrist watches used tiny moving parts of micro meter dimensions, we amused at the power of making things smaller. And now nanotech simply makes us adore the ultimate miniaturization of materials. 'Nanotech', the new age physics deals with the study of matter at an atomic or molecular scale and is expected to drive most of the future manufacturing technologies. From cosmetic products to sports goods to medical products to ultra modern electronic chips, nanotechnology has been revolutionizing and fabricating 'subatomic' machines from the scratch. The technology which has been in theories for around twenty years is now gaining commercial use. While not comprehensive, around 1,000+ manufacturer-identified nanotechnology-based consumer products are currently on the market. So what's in store for the end users from this mesmerizing nanotech laboratory? Nanowires with extreme small diameters have helped in making tiny transistors for computer chips hence making it go smaller. And scientists hope that carbon nanotubes will replace them to make things even 'smaller'. One can create a carbon nanotube that's hundreds of times stronger than steel, but at the same time is six times lighter. Now that sounds like a dream come true for engineers looking for materials for building cars and planes doesn't it. This will also revolutionize IT since these tubes can be either conducting or semiconducting and have the potential for memory and storage as well. An interesting way in which carbon nanotubes can be used will be in the development of a high density, nonvolatile random access memory chip that could replace dynamic RAM, flash memory and even hard drives. The technology has the potential to enable instant-on computers that boot and reboot without delays and eliminate the need for internal disk drives on computers. Nanotechnology also has something in store for display devices, such as the replacement of cathode ray tube (CRT) technology by electron-producing carbon nanotubes. Live saving drugs are another core area where nano technology can break free besides the huge potential to revolutionize electronic gadgets, where 'smart materials' (engineered at the nanometer scale to perform special tasks) and nano censors will play huge role. And the business side of nanotech products is getting very active. Companies which produce nanotech products are going online and you can find various virtual shops to shop for nanotech products once you google the keyword and new products are hitting the market at a pace of 3-4 per week. Though technologies branded with the term 'nano' are sometimes little related to and fall far short of the most ambitious and transformative technological goals of the sort in molecular manufacturing proposals, the term still connotes such ideas. But all said there are cons to all the pros stated. Because of the far-ranging claims that have been made about potential applications of nanotechnology, a number of serious concerns have been raised about what effects these will have on our society if realized, and what action if any is appropriate to mitigate these risks. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology suggests that new developments could result, among other things; in untraceable weapons of mass destruction, networked cameras for use by the government, and weapons developments fast enough to destabilize arms races. So far so good and when it comes to a future for this new age science, we can only hope because 'size matters'.

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