nano tech and chemistry

[AL_DA_GREAT]

What is the difference between chemistry and nano tech? Both seem to be about atoms and combining them to do things.

 

[Birdjaguar]

If you are interested in nanotech and like sci fi, read Diamond Age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Age

 

[Verbose]

What is the difference between chemistry and nano tech? Both seem to be about atoms and combining them to do things.

The basic difference between chemical and mechanical manipulation I would say. Nano-technology relies in the latter.

They're actually pushing atoms around to build things. There's sometimes a distinction made between designing "top down" (which is what you tend to to when initiating for instance chemical reactions) and "bottom up", which requires manipulation of single atoms, and of which nanotechnology is the first example of so far.

Not sure this link is the most clarifying, but I got what I know (if I actually understand it, which I wouldn't vouch for) from a seminar by this professor (history of science, Paris X, Nanterre):
http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/10-2/bensaude.htm

 

[uppi]

The basic difference between chemical and mechanical manipulation I would say. Nano-technology relies in the latter.

No. Nanotechnology is not only about mechanical manipulation. In fact, sometimes it's misleading to speak of mechanical manipulation on the nanoscale, as there isn't much of a connection to classical mechanics.

Nanotechnology is pretty much every structure on the nanoscale, basically everything with dimensions that can reasonably be expressed in nanometers.
Because of that it doesn't make much sense to ask for the difference between nanotechnology and chemistry, as chemistry can be nanotechnology if it is done on a scale small enough.

They're actually pushing atoms around to build things. There's sometimes a distinction made between designing "top down" (which is what you tend to to when initiating for instance chemical reactions) and "bottom up", which requires manipulation of single atoms, and of which nanotechnology is the first example of so far.

You got that backwards and wrong: "top down" are the fabrication methods where you use litography or other methods to imprint your design on a substrate. Pushing atoms around would fall under "top down". "bottom up" are methods where you let your structure grow by exposing it to different chemicals and use self-assembly processes. Initiating a chemical reaction to get you structure falls under "bottom up". ("top down" also needs some chemistry, but you don't control your structure with chemistry.)

 

[Verbose]

No. Nanotechnology is not only about mechanical manipulation. In fact, sometimes it's misleading to speak of mechanical manipulation on the nanoscale, as there isn't much of a connection to classical mechanics.

Nanotechnology is pretty much every structure on the nanoscale, basically everything with dimensions that can reasonably be expressed in nanometers.
Because of that it doesn't make much sense to ask for the difference between nanotechnology and chemistry, as chemistry can be nanotechnology if it is done on a scale small enough.



You got that backwards and wrong: "top down" are the fabrication methods where you use litography or other methods to imprint your design on a substrate. Pushing atoms around would fall under "top down". "bottom up" are methods where you let your structure grow by exposing it to different chemicals and use self-assembly processes. Initiating a chemical reaction to get you structure falls under "bottom up". ("top down" also needs some chemistry, but you don't control your structure with chemistry.)

If you say so.

The diverging assertions as to exactly what's what seems pretty general though.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Nanotechnology as it was taught at my university practically means you can really control the fabrication of structures on a nano scale.
Most chemical reactions produce a distribution of species as many random things are going on. An analogue to nanotech would be how nature can produce for instance almost uniform antibodies. Nanotech is like biology but with different chemical composition. Various approaches can be used for nanotech materials.

 

[The Fjonis]

Nanotechnology is pretty much every structure on the nanoscale, basically everything with dimensions that can reasonably be expressed in nanometers.
Because of that it doesn't make much sense to ask for the difference between nanotechnology and chemistry, as chemistry can be nanotechnology if it is done on a scale small enough.

Indeed. My colloid chemistry prof used to say that nanotech is just a fancy new word for stuff that they'd been doing for decades. (colloids = tiny particles, some of which fall within the nano size range) So nanotech is in fact just a subset of chemistry.

The reason why the words "nano" and "nanotech" keep popping up so often these days is that the recent decades have given us lots of new powerful tools to manipulate and investigate things in this sizerange. We can make rods, hollow tubes, spheres and lots of other shapes with modulated and carefully controlled composition and shape, which can have all sorts of intriguing properties like superconductivity, tubable light emission, etc etc -- the list is long, and in theory I'd even say it's endless.