The World at a Nanoscale

6 min readMay 2, 2020

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers states that Nanotechnology — will leave virtually no aspect of life untouched and is expected to be in widespread by 2020

Nanotechnology

So, what is nanotechnology? For innovators, it’s a gold mine. As there are so many applications. Even if we only able to make half of them come true, our lives will be radically changed, becoming not varied from the ones in pop culture references from Star Wars to Back to the Future. As nanotechnology has become immensely popular in the past few years, it can be seen that someday we will revamp the systems of life, transforming our dreams into realities.

In the near future, you can change your genes to make yourself immune to problems that are in your genetics like autism, dyslexia and other diseases such as Fragile X and Down syndrome.

Nanotechnology is a mechanical or chemical machine scaled to the nanometer. On a comparable scale, if a marble represents a nanometer, then one meter would represent the size of the Earth. Conscientiously, you may be asking what can something that small achieve? Well, when you go that small you can have a huge effect on miniature objects. Which means that there is a limit to what our hands can handle. To move a glass of water, our hands are the right tool but if we have to splice a section of our DNA our hands would not be the right tool for the job. When nanotechnology goes to work, it can be employed to examine your blood cells for a genetic disorder to completely rearranging atoms to manufacture diamonds.

“Incurable diseases will eventually force mankind to justify disruptive nanotech and genetic engineering.”― Toba Beta

Nanosensors

The Nanobot is checking the blood cells for any abnormalities because in the future nanobots will become a need for society. As “nanotechnology in medicine is going to have a major impact on the survival of the human race.” — Bernard Marcus.

Nanosensors are one of the crucial links in the nanotech ecosystem. As without nanosensors, the bot will simply be a remarkable piece of junk that is in your bloodstream, purely useless. As nanosensors are the intellect of the bot providing guidance to navigate through arteries to its destination & detect infected cells or to inform the nanobot of the surrounding structures.

This is a hypothetical example of what can happen when nanobots and nanotubes come into play blocking a cancer cell from getting its supply through clotting the blood flow.

Nanosensor’s function is to analyze electrical signals and changes therein with predefined code to execute instructions. Chemical sensors are electrically confined structures. Nanowires and nanotubes are excellent examples of chemical nanosensors. Nanosensors can detect the flow of chemicals going through and identify any disruption. Mechanical nanosensors function similar to chemical ones, expect the fact that they behave differently when encountered with the same problem. Within nanosensor, there is another subdivision based on nanoscale dimensions and those that perform nanoscale measurements.

This is a design of a graphene-based nanobot/nanotube that will break the contamination down to its core elements in the polluted water (oil, radioactive waste, plastic)

Well after hearing why nanosensors are so crucial for nanotech there are also a lot of applications for them. Like quality control in food & pharmaceuticals As nanosensors detect the integrity of packaging with leakage of air that could potentially cause bacterial growth. Early cancer detection with nanobots injected in your bloodstream would hunt and identify when it encounters cancer cells and could dispense therapeutic treatment. Environmental contamination — it will be able to check the quality of the water by going through a series of tests. On encountering contamination relay to the central command system for the area notifying them about the contamination. These are just a few examples of how they could increase the quality of life overall.

“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
― Robert Heinlein

Nanofabrication

Nanosensors manufacturing entails engineering complexity on material and technology commonly known as Nanofabrication interchangeably termed nanomanufacturing. One of the prominent ways to fabricate a nanosensor is Photolithography.

Photolithography is the process of transferring geometric shapes on a mask to the surface of a silicon wafer to simplify it. The steps involved in the photolithographic process is called wafer cleaning. Which is there as a way to stop slits of dust particles that can cause a defect. A Barrier layer formation, photoresist application, soft baking, mask alignment, exposure, and development.

The process is exceedingly complex positioned on cutting edge tech coupled with advanced metallurgy with elevated quality control is a prerequisite.

These are some of the details on the nanoscale to tell you how complicated a nanosensor can be.

There are many issues with nanofabrication like contamination. Even a single dust particle can make the sensor defective. Incrementally the process remains exceptionally complicated and intricate with multifold stages that require a sterile environment. The industrial process has a higher hurdle in terms of technical challenges and financial startup costs. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Future of Nanofabrication

Existing processes for nanofabrication are both complex and expensive with a massive amount of investment in equipment/ facilities resulting in nanotechnologies having a limited reach and applications. In order to leverage the immense potential, nanofabrication needs a quantum leap with out of the box ideas. One option is to innovate with existing techniques of 3D printing to the next level.

It’s a strange twist to 3D printing with the approach to reshaping the primary tenets of nanofabrication. As the current process requires multi-stages with extreme sterile facilities. 3D printers would be very precise, ease of operation & versatile with reduced defects. Micro Printer would print at the atomic dimension making each particle unique in terms of design and functionality. This will enhance nanosensor’s effectiveness multifold actualization of science fantasy into reality. 3D printers in the past have made replicas of organs, houses, beaks and soon enough space shuttles. Reversing the concept of building larger objects to miniature models extending to atomic structures. Accordingly, with techno-engineering advancement, be capable of printing at the atomic structure with graphene and will intertwine between other materials. Elevated robotics science to render the development of a model nanosensor coding 3D printer manufacture under a silicon wafer.

Conclusion

Manufacturing on nanolevel will be the next innovation in our race towards the future. Consequently, if you don’t keep up with advancement in nanotechnology, it's going to blow up in your face as a paradox of nanoscopic ushering revolution of gigantic proportion. As nanotech, at some point will be omnipresent in every sphere of human endeavour.

That is essentially what nanobots are capable of changing into anything.

Nanotech has numerous and varied applications, encompassing every human activity and beyond. We can confidently assert the prominence of nanotech as a binding force for emerging technological innovation. Nanosensor is the soul of the nanotech ecosystem tantamount to the body without intellect, purposeless and ineffective. Innovation in process of nanofabrication is core toward fulfilment of its true potential. Conceive novel concepts pushing boundaries of simplicity and ingenuity toward manufacturing the much larger universe.

Further Information

I perceive the world of nanotechnology as a very fascinating emerging techno frontier, the possibilities are infinite with continual benefits. For more information, you can take a look at the links below, which I also used as a reference for this article.