Nanoscale science, engineering, and technology are fields
of research in which scientists and engineers
manipulate matter at the atomic and
molecular level in order to obtain materials and systems with significantly
improved properties. Ten nanometers is equal to one-thousandth the diameter of
a human
hair.
For decades, microstructures—which are thousands of times larger than nanostructures—have formed the
basis for our technologies, e.g., ceramics and alloy fabrication and electronics.
Although microstructures are small on the scale of direct human experience, their physics
is still largely the same as that of the bulk macroscopic systems.
However, nanostructures are
fundamentally different. Their characteristics—especially their electronic and
magnetic characteristics—are often significantly different from the same material
in the bulk. Nanostructures are, in a sense, a unique state of matter—one with
particular promise for new and potentially very useful products.
Exploring the science of
nanostructures has become a new theme common to many disciplines. In
electronics, nanostructures represent the limiting extension of Moore's law and classical
devices to small devices, and they represent the step into quantum devices and
fundamentally new processor architectures. In catalysis, nanostructures are the templates
and pores of zeolites and other vitally important structures. In condensed matter physics,
the nanometer length scale is the largest one over which a crystal can be made essentially
perfect. In materials sciences, fabrication using nanostructures
results in alloys and composites with radically improved properties.
In molecular biology, nanostructures are the fundamental machines that drive
the cell—histones and proteosomes—and
they are components of the mitochondrion, the chloroplast, the ribosome, and the
replication and transcription complexes. The ability to precisely control the arrangements
of impurities and defects with respect to each other, and the ability to integrate perfect
inorganic and organic nanostructures, holds forth the promise of a completely new
generation of advanced composites.
As part of the
National
Nanotechnology Initiative, DOE’s Office of Science is supporting investigators in
universities and national laboratories in various areas of nanoscience. In
addition, BES Nanoscale Science Research Centers
provide critically needed user facilities for
synthesis, processing, fabrication, and analysis of materials at the nanoscale. |
)
