The early history of nanotechnology

Introduction

Nanotechnology is an essentially modern scientific field that is constantly evolving as commercial andacademic interest continues to increase and as new research is presented to the scientific community. The field’s simplest rootscan be traced, albeit arguably, to 1959 but its primary development occurred in both the eighties and the early nineties. In additionto specific scientific achievements such as the invention of the STM, this early history is most importantly reflected in theinitial vision of molecular manufacturing as it is outlined in three important works. Overall, an understanding of development andthe criticism of this vision is integral for comprehending the realities and potential of nanotechnology today.

Richard feynman: there's plenty of room at the bottom

"But I am not afraid to consider the final question as to whether, ultimately---in the great future---we can arrange theatoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down!" -Richard Feynman, There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom

The first time the idea of nanotechnology was introduced was in 1959, when Richard Feynman ( [link] ), a physicist at Caltech, gave a talk entitled There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom . Though he never explicitly mentioned "nanotechnology," Feynman suggested that itwill eventually be possible to precisely manipulate atoms and molecules. Moreover, in an even more radical proposition, he thoughtthat, in principle, it was possible to create "nano-scale" machines, through a cascade of billions of factories. According to thephysicist, these factories would be progressively smaller scaled versions of machine hands and tools. He proposed that these tiny"machine shops" would then eventually be able to create billions of tinier factories. In these speculations, he also suggested thatthere are various factors, which uniquely affect the nano-scale level. Specifically, he suggested that as the scale got smaller andsmaller, gravity would become more negligible, while both van der Waals attraction and surface tension would become very important. Inthe end, Feynman's talk has been viewed as the first academic talk that dealt with a main tenet of nanotechnology, the directmanipulation of individual atoms (molecular manufacturing).

Hence, long before STMs and atomic force microscopes were invented Feynman proposed these revolutionary ideasto his peers. As demonstrated in his quote (above), he chose to deal with a "final question" that wasn't fully realized till the eightiesand nineties. Ultimately then, it was during these two decades, when the term "nanotechnology" was coined and researchers, starting withEric Drexler, built up this field from the foundation that Feynman constructed in 1959. However, some such as Chris Toumey minimize theimportance of Feynman in the establishment of the intellectual groundwork for nanotechnology. Instead, using evidence from itscitation history, Toumey sees There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom as a "founding myth" that served only to directly influence Drexlerrather than the other important scientists, who affected the future development of nanotechnology. Nevertheless, though the ultimateeffect of Feynman's talk is debatable, it is certain that this work directly influenced Drexler's own research, which thus indirectlyinfluenced nanotechnology as a whole.