Nanotechnology; Technology To Enhance Life.

kelvino (46)in #steemstem • 7 years ago (edited)

Hi guys,

Hope you all had a remarkable Christmas holiday? I wish you guys a successful and joyous New year!

Today I’m going to explicate on a very interesting topic; Nanotechnology. The word nanotechnology might sound new to some of you, but some of you must have heard about it without even knowing what it is all about. This technology has been in practice for several decades now, and have contributed significantly in enhancing the human standard of living, of which I’m going to elucidate on.

Talking of nanotechnology, what is nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology as the name implies is a field of applied science and technology that deals with the study, exploitation and manipulation of matter on an atomic or molecular size or scale to design or fabricate miniature, complex and standard products. This brings us to the term nanomaterials, which are atom sized materials that are between the size range of 1-100 nanometers with novel properties. Imagine how small a nanomaterial should be like.

Now, talking of novel properties; these are the properties of nanomaterials by which they can be mechanically worked upon despite their miniature size. This implies that not all material that falls between the scale of 1-100 nanometers are nanomaterial. For a material to be regarded as a nanomaterial, it must fall within the giving scale and also possess the novel properties.

_{[1] Comparison of Nanomaterials Sizes Wikipedia}

The idea of nanotech was inspired since the discovery of the sub-atomic particles (electron, proton and neutron). But the practice started since the early 1910s when the need to design and fabricate instruments to measure and construct nanostructures became paramount. Although, nanotech have been in practice since the early 1910s, it didn’t have a particular name until late 80s when Eric Drexler a U.S engineer named it nanotechnology in the early 1980s. And ever since then, nanotech has had significant application in all aspect of science and human life, ranging from electronics to medicine.

You might be surprised about how nanotech has tremendously improved standard of living for the past few decades as I explicate on few areas where the applications of nanotechnology have made significant impacts.

1. Applications Of Nanotechology In Electronics and Communications.

Over the past few decades since the emagence of the idea of nanotech, nanotechnology has contributed significantly in the design of more advance, portable and durable electronics, communications and computing components, such as nano diodes, nano transistors, integrated circuits (ICs), etc. And these improvements cannot be overlooked.

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Remember the first generation computers that were designed around 1946-1959. These computers used vacuum tubes as the basic components for memory and circuitry for CPU. These tubes, just like electric bulbs, generate a lot of heat and they undergoes frequent fusing of the installations, therefore, were very expensive and could only be afforded by large companies or business organizations. In this generation mainly batch processing operating system were used. Punched cards, paper tape, and magnetic tape were used as input and output devices. This generation computers used machine code as programming language.
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But with the application of nanotechnology to computing over the past few decades, a lot of improvements have been made to computers.

After some series of modification from the first generation which used vacuum tube, to the second generation computers which used transistors, to the third generation computers which used ICs (integrated circuits), to the fourth generation computers which used very large scale integrated circuit (VLSICs), and now we have the fifth generation computer which is the modern day computer that uses ultra large scale integrated circuits (ULSICs).
_{[3] image credit; crystalgrapics.com}

These modern computers uses microprocessor chips having several million electronic components, and they are designed based on parallel processing hardware and AI (Artificial Intelligence) software.

AI is an emerging branch in computer science, which interprets means and method of making computers think like human beings.

The now modern day computers are made very portable and affordable thanks to nanotech.
Nanotech has also contributed significantly in the production of more portable, affordable and advanced models of other electronics like television sets, digital cameras, cell phones, wrist watches etc, by increasingthe functionalities and at the same time decreasing the size and weight of electronics.

2. Application Of Nanotechnology In Medicine.

Nanotechnology has also made a lot of significant improvements in medical researches and practices. Some of these improvements include;

Research to develop nano-robots or nanoparticles that would be able to deliver drugs, heat or other substances to specific cells in the body, Such as deceased or cancer cells without having to come in contact or even cause damage to other healthy cells in the body. These nanoparticles that are been fabricated to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to cancer cells are still being tested.

Another significant breakthrough of nanotech in medical practice is the development of nanoparticulate synthetic bones, tissues and organs made of biomaterials which are now used to replace damaged bones and few other body tissues and organs like the human heart.

More so, research is been made to develop molecular systems or structures that can be used to substitute some systems in the human body. This research could serve as a basis for regeneration or replacement of body parts that are lost or damaged to infection, accident, or diseases.

Conclusion

Nanotechnology has a significant impact and it literally evolved a technological world as we know it today. It has impressive applications in almost every area whether it is medical science, robotics, manufacturing etc.

Haven been enlightened a little about this new age technology, I know you must have some thoughts about it. Please do share your thoughts and don’t forget to hit that upvote button.

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Image Sources: 1 -2 -3