Nowadays, nano washing machines and nano refrigerators have appeared in advertisements. It seems that nano is really not far away from our lives. This is indeed the case. Nanotechnology is entering our lives and will also change our lives.
American scientist Neil Leith said: "Nanotechnology is the field of science and engineering most likely to achieve breakthroughs in the future." This technology is not just a step towards miniaturization, but a new microscopic world in which the movement of matter is dominated by quantum principles.
Traditional theories explaining the properties of materials are only applicable to substances greater than the critical length of 100 nanometers. If a dimension of a structure is smaller than a critical length, the properties of matter often cannot be explained by traditional theories. At the end of the 20th century, scientists from all over the world were trying to discover novel phenomena in the middle-level field, that is, from the level of a single molecule or atom to the level of hundreds of thousands of molecules. The study of this basic theory has promoted our current progress in nanoscience research.
We know that the basic unit of matter is the atom. Therefore, today's research on nanoscience and technology is actually people's understanding of the world at the atomic level.
As early as 1993, researchers from the Beijing Vacuum Physics Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences placed atoms freely like a chess player under a microscope and wrote the word "China". This is just an experiment, but humans can discover and see the miracles of the nanometer world; humans will gain more and greater benefits in the new field of nanotechnology.
Nanomaterials and nanostructure scientists describe the prospects for nanoscale product applications, anticipating the emergence of special novel new materials in the near future. These materials will have multiple functions and be able to sense changes in the environment and respond accordingly. Experts in nanotechnology anticipate the emergence of stronger steel. The 10 times material weighs only 1/10 of paper, is superconductive, transparent and has a higher melting point.
How will the subtle and miraculous nanotechnology change our lives? There are many examples. For example, carbon nanotubes, whose size is less than one ten thousandth of the diameter of a human hair, can be used Making extremely thin wires or used in ultra-small electronic devices. Using nanotechnology in memory can greatly improve the storage function of electronic devices. Information from a library with millions of books can be put into a device the size of a candy bar. in the device.
For another example, some people call nanometer "industrial MSG" because if it is "sprinkled" into many traditional materials, old products will take on a stunning new look. Cutting boards, rags, ceramic tiles, subway magnetic cards, these little things that love to be clean can be deodorized and sterilized once nanoparticles are added to them. Buildings built with cement and concrete "mixed" with nanoparticles can absorb and degrade harmful substances in the air. Reinforced concrete can also "breathe deeply" like a forest. Existing silicon chips will be replaced by nanotube components that are hundreds of times smaller, and the giant computers that now occupy several rooms could be small enough to fit in a pocket.
The most attractive thing is the future "nano-robot", which can enter the human body and destroy cancer cells without damaging healthy cells; it can deliver drugs back and forth in the human body, clean arteries, and repair the heart and brain. and other organs without surgery.
In 1999, the U.S. government called for accelerating basic research in nanoscience and engineering in its report on nanotechnology. The President of the United States believed that nanotechnology was very important to maintaining the leading position of U.S. science, technology and economy, and suggested that it The federal nanotechnology research budget doubled to $495 million in 2001. Research efforts for the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative will be coordinated by a committee composed of senior representatives from various government research and development programs. The Departments of Defense, Energy, Commerce, the Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health will play important roles under the guidance of the National Science and Technology Council. The initial research focus of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Program is on materials with novel properties at the molecular level and significantly improved physical and chemical properties.
Some cutting-edge fields of nanotechnology that nanotechnology researchers from various countries are interested in can be summarized in the following five aspects:
——At the nanometer level, the interaction between electrons and atoms will Affected by changing factors. In this way, it is possible for scientists to control the basic properties of substances, such as magnetism, electricity storage capacity and catalytic ability, without changing the chemical composition of the material.
——At the nanometer level, biological systems have a complete set of systematic organizations, which allows scientists to put artificial components and assembly systems into human cells, making it possible for humans to simulate nature and create molecular machines.
- Nanocomponents have large surface areas, which can make them ideal catalysts and absorbers, etc., and come in handy in releasing electrical energy and delivering drugs to human cells.
——Compared with ordinary materials, materials made using nanotechnology will be greatly reduced in size and their strength and toughness will be improved while the composition remains unchanged. Because nanoparticles are very small, they do not create surface defects, and because nanoparticles have high surface energy, their strength increases. This will be very useful for making strong composite materials.
—— Compared with macrostructures, nanostructures are orders of magnitude smaller in all dimensions, so interactions will occur faster, which will lead to more energy-efficient and better-performing devices. system.
The nano era is coming to us with the efforts of nano experts from all over the world. Some scientists predict that this revolution in nanotechnology can be compared to the revolution triggered by the replacement of transistors with microelectronic devices. The emergence of micro nano-transistors and nano-memory chips in the future will increase the speed and efficiency of computers by millions of times, increase the capacity of disk storage to hundreds or thousands of times that of today, and reduce energy consumption to hundreds of thousands of cents today. one. Communication bandwidth will increase hundreds of times, and foldable displays will be 10 times brighter than current displays. In addition, what is possible at the nanometer level is that biological and non-biological components will be combined into interactive sensors and processors to serve humans.
How far can scientists predict the future? The U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association has developed a development roadmap for processors, sensors, memory and transmission equipment, but this roadmap only extends to 2010 and only Structures with a size of 100 nanometers were achieved, which is larger than devices that are all nanostructured. The association said it takes time for scientific discoveries to become commercially viable technologies, and it is expected that nanotechnology will not mature until 2010 to 2015.
It can be seen that it is an undoubted fact that nano-scale products will appear in large numbers in the near future. With the deepening of research on nanotechnology and products, nanotechnology and technology patents will be commercialized in more than ten years. It seems that nanotechnology is really going to become a part of our daily lives, and we are eager for that day to come soon.