Possible Applications of Nanotechnology

Most nanotechnologies are still at the earliest levels of development. But a vast number of industries already deliver products to the market which are either nano-sized or exploit nano effects. The main fields in which nanotechnology will find many applications include medicine, electronics (especially computers) and new materials manufacturing.

A key area of interest of nanotechnology in medicine is drug delivery. Liposomes, which are the smallest artificial vesicles of spherical shape (measure less then 200 nanometers), are the best example. Discovered about 30 years ago, liposomes are produced from natural untoxic phospholipids and cholesterol. They can be used as drug carriers, loaded with small drug molecules, proteins or nucleotides, or as dermatological and cosmetic active agent carriers (Schwendener, 2003).

Molecular machines (assemblers) would also find many applications in medicine. They could be used for example in a tissue repair. These machines would be able to re-form molecular bonds that hold cells together and thus repair wounds almost immediately. Beside that, they could scan each cell’s DNA to search for damage and then repair it, or simply replace chromosomes periodically with new error free copies. Other types of medical assemblers could be programmed to identify and fight infectious microbes (Phoenix, 2001).

The most notable examples of products built in nanoscale technology are computer microchips. Such microchips are produced in the process called photolithography, in which light is projected through a stencil onto a silicon wafer. Circuit lines of current silicon chips are a little more than 100 nanometers (Stix, 2001). Similarly to microchips, computer hard drives also exploit achievements of nanotechnology. Their nanostructured magnetic multilayers employ the effect of the giant magneto resistance (GMR). This effect is used to attain highly dense data storage (Moore & Vohora, 2001).

Nano-materials have found applications in many areas, e.g. advanced ceramics, paints and pigments, filters, catalysts for industrial processes and ultrathin, scratch- resistant coatings for car windscreens (Moore & Vohora, 2001). Nanoparticles in general improve basic material properties. For example, nano-size zinc oxide particles are used to produce sunscreens. These particles make the usually white colored cream transparent, because they do not scatter visible light (Stix, 2001). Carbon nanotubes are example of nanostructures which are made of carbon atoms and which form hollow, thin cylinders. They may find applications in nano-electronics (e.g. as nano-wires in a computer’s chip) and nano-mechanical devices (Whitesides & Love, 2001). With the number of nanotechnology research centers growing (from fewer than 10 in 1999, to more than 30 in 2001), the number of commercially available products also increases (Stix, 2001).