Understanding the Nanotechnology Revolution E-Book

Edward L. Wolf

• Herausgeber: Wiley-VCH
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 415

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A unique introduction for general readers to the underlying concepts of nanotechnology, covering a wide spectrum ranging from biology to quantum computing. The material is presented in the simplest possible way, including a few mathematical equations, but not mathematical derivations. It also outlines as simply as possible the major contributions to modern technology of physics-based nanophysical devices, such as the atomic clock, global positioning systems, and magnetic resonance imaging. As a result, readers are able to establish a connection between nanotechnology and day-to-day applications, as well as with advances in information technology based on fast computers, the internet, dense data storage, Google searches, and new concepts for renewable energy harvesting. Also of interest to professionals working in law, finance, or teaching who wish to understand nanotechnology in a broad context, and as general reading for electrical, chemical and computer engineers, materials scientists, applied physicists and mathematicians, as well as for students of these disciplines.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Related Titles

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

1 Discovery, Invention, and Science in Human Progress

1.1 Origins of Technology, the Need for Human Survival

1.2 The Industrial Revolution: Watt’s Steam Engine, Thermodynamics, Energy Sources

1.3 A Short History of Time: Navigation, Longitudes, Clocks

1.4 The Information Revolution: Abacus to Computer Chips and Fiber Optics

1.5 Overlap and Accelerating Cascade of Technologies: GPS, Nuclear Submarines

1.6 Silicon and Biotechnologies: Carbon Dating, Artificial Intelligence

1.7 Nanotechnology: A Leading Edge of Technological Advance, a Bridge to the Future

1.8 How to Use This Book

2 Smaller Is More, Usually Better, and Sometimes Entirely New!

2.1 Nanometers, Micrometers, Millimeters – Visualizing a Nanometer

2.2 Moore’s Law: from 30 Transistors to a Billion Transistors on One Chip and Cloud Computing

2.3 Miniaturization: Esaki’s Tunneling Diode, 1-TB Magnetic Disk “Read” Heads

2.4 Accelerometers and Semiconductor Lasers

2.5 Nanophysics-Based Technology: Medical Imaging, Atomic Clock, Sensors, Quantum Computers

3 Systematics of Scaling Things Down: L = 1 m → 1 nm

3.1 One-Dimensional and Three-Dimensional Scaling

3.2 Examples of Scaling: Clocks, Tuning Forks, Quartz Watches, Carbon Nanotubes

3.3 Scaling Relations Illustrated by Simple Circuit Elements

3.4 Viscous Forces for Small Particles in Fluid Media

3.5 What about Scaling Airplanes and Birds to Small Sizes?

4 Biology as Successful Nanotechnology

4.1 Molecular Motors in Large Animals: Linear Motors and Rotary Motors

4.2 Information Technology in Biology Based on DNA

4.3 Sensors, Rods, Cones, and Nanoscale Magnets

4.4 Ion Channels: Nanotransistors of Biology

5 The End of Scaling: The Lumpiness of All Matter in the Universe

5.1 Lumpiness of Macroscopic Matter below the 10-µm Scale

5.2 Hydrogen Atom of Bohr: A New Size Scale, Planck’s Constant

5.3 Waves of Water, Light, Electron, and Their Diffractions

5.4 DeBroglie Matter Wavelength

5.5 Schrodinger’s Equation

5.6 The End of Scaling, the Substructure of the Universe

5.7 What Technologies Are Directly Based on These Fundamental Particles and Spin?

6 Quantum Consequences for the Macroworld

6.1 Quantum Wells and Standing Waves

6.2 Probability Distributions and Uncertainty Principle

6.3 Double Well as Precursor of Molecule

6.4 The Spherical Atom

6.5 Where Did the Nuclei Come From (Atoms Quickly Form around Them)?

6.6 The “Strong Force” Binds Nuclei

6.7 Chemical Elements: Based on Nuclear Stability

6.8 Molecules and Crystals: Metals as Boxes of Free Electrons

7 Some Natural and Industrial Self-Assembled Nanostructures

7.1 Periodic Structures: A Simple Model for Electron Bands and Gaps

7.2 Engineering Electrical Conduction in Tetrahedrally Bonded Semiconductors

7.3 Quantum Dots

7.4 Carbon Nanotubes

7.5 C60 Buckyball

8 Injection Lasers and Billion-Transistor Chips

8.1 Semiconductor P-N Junction Lasers in the Internet

8.2 P-N Junction and Emission of Light at 1.24 µm

8.3 Field Effect Transistor

9 The Scanning Tunneling Microscope and Scanning Tunneling Microscope Revolution

9.1 Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) as Prototype

9.2 Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and Magnetic Force Microscope (MFM)

9.3 SNOM: Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope

10 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): Nanophysics of Spin ½

10.1 Imaging the Protons in Water: Proton Spin ½, a Two-Level System

10.2 Magnetic Moments in a Milligram of Water: Polarization and Detection

10.3 Larmor Precession, Level Splitting at 1 T

10.4 Magnetic Resonance and Rabi Frequency

10.5 Schrodinger’s Cat Realized in Proton Spins

10.6 Superconductivity as a Detection Scheme for Magnetic Resonance Imaging

10.7 Quantized Magnetic Flux in Closed Superconducting Loops

10.8 SQUID Detector of Magnetic Field Strength

11 Nanophysics and Nanotechnology of High-Density Data Storage

11.1 Approaches to Terabyte Memory: Mechanical and Magnetic

11.2 The Nanoelectromechanical “Millipede” Cantilever Array and Its Fabrication

11.3 The Magnetic Hard Disk

12 Single-Electron Transistors and Molecular Electronics

12.1 What Could Possibly Replace the FET at the “End of Moore’s Law”?

12.2 The Single-Electron Transistor (SET)

12.3 Single-Electron Transistor at Room Temperature Based on a Carbon Nanotube

12.4 Random Access Storage Based on Crossbar Arrays of Carbon Nanotubes

12.5 A Molecular Computer!

13 Quantum Computers and Superconducting Computers

13.1 The Increasing Energy Costs of Silicon Computing

13.2 Quantum Computing

13.3 Charge Qubit

13.4 Silicon-Based Quantum-Computer Qubits

13.5 Adiabatic Quantum Computation

13.6 Opportunity for Innovation in Large-Scale Computation

14 Looking into the Future

14.1 Ideas, People, and Technologies

14.2 Why the Molecular Assembler of Drexler: One Atom at a Time, Will Not Work

14.3 Man-Made Life: The Bacterium Invented by Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith

14.4 Future Energy Sources

14.5 Exponential Growth in Human Communication

14.6 Role of Nanotechnology

Index

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Wolf, E. L.

Quantum Nanoelectronics

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Rubahn, H.-G.

Basics of Nanotechnology

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Fayngold, M.

Special Relativity and How It Works

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Edwards, S. A.

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The Authors

Prof. Edward L. Wolf

New York University

Polytechnic Institute

Brooklyn, New York

USA

[email protected]

Manasa Medikonda

State University of New York at Albany

School of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

Albany, New York

USA

Cover

Nanotube by Geoffrey Hutchison, Pittsburgh, USA

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Print ISBN: 978-3-527-41109-2

Preface

A revolution has occurred over the past several decades in the availability and uses of information. This is perhaps the strongest reminder that we live in a time of accelerating technological change. This book explains one aspect of technological change, related to very small devices, devices approaching the atomic scale in their size. The technology related to small devices is called nanotechnology. But our aim in this book is broader, to put nanotechnology into the context of earlier scientific advances concerning very small objects. The contributions of the enlarged field of “nanotechnology” have been particularly great in information technology, the technology of computers, wireless communication, fiber optics, the Facebook phenomenon, and thinking machines like the “Watson” computer that can win on the television game “Jeopardy.” We will argue that the greatest success of nanotechnology is really the silicon chip, with its billion transistors. Although Moore’s law appeared before the word “nanotechnology,” these developments in silicon technology clearly now fall within the definition of “engineered systems, at least one dimension being in the scale from 100 to 1 nanometers.” The best way to view these developments is as part of nanotechnology. Many people, we think, will benefit, beyond seeing that silicon technology is a leading example of nanotechnology, by recognizing the longer common thread of competences that we believe are best regarded as “nanotechnology.” These have the common aspect of harnessing tiny objects, to include the electron spins in cesium atoms that are the basis for the atomic clock, the use of proton spins in successful magnetic resonance imaging, and other topics as we will mention.

Specifically, this small book was stimulated by the invitation of “The Modern Scholar” series of audio lectures of Recorded Books, LLC, to one of us to provide a series of audio lectures on the topic “Understanding Nanotechnology: A Bridge to the Future.” We have benefited from interactions with many people in this project. We thank Ed White of Recorded Books; Ed Immergut, Consulting Editor in Brooklyn, NY; Vera Palmer, Commissioning Editor at Wiley VCH; Ulrike Werner of Wiley-VCH; Prof. Lorcan Folan; and Ms. DeShane Lyew at the Physics Department of NYU-Poly. In particular, E.W. thanks Carol, Ph.D. in Mathematics and Prof. of Computer Science, for help in many ways and for comments on the abacus and more generally on the history of mathematical inventions. M.M. wants to thank her family and friends for their tremendous support.

The book is dedicated to pioneers in the nanotechnology-enabled information revolution. John V. Atanasoff invented the digital programmable computer, arguably the most important invention of the twentieth century, as detailed in Note N4 to Chapter 2. (Notes follow Chapter 14 in the organization of this book.) John Bardeen was a coinventor of the transistor, which made the digital computer a practical matter and led to the Moore’s law growth of computing capacity. S.S.P. Parkin did essential developmental research allowing the quantum-mechanical magnetic tunnel junction, based on the spin ½ of electrons, to be manufactured as the data-reading element in today’s computer memory, the basis for cloud computing. Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee is a principal architect of the World Wide Web, the global computer network that connects people in today’s world.

E. Wolf and M. Medikonda

Brooklyn, NY, May 1, 2011

1

Discovery, Invention, and Science in Human Progress

Nanotechnology is a recent addition to the long history of human efforts to survive and make life better. Nanotechnology is based on the understanding of and tools to deal with very tiny objects, down to the size of atoms [1]. To begin, it is worth reviewing some of the broader history, to put nanotechnology in perspective, so that we can better understand how it can serve as a bridge to the future.

Technology has evolved over tens of thousands of years and more by the activities of humans and their predecessors: the history of technology is almost the history of humanity.

1.1 Origins of Technology, the Need for Human Survival

Struggling for survival and ascendency for over 50 000 years (a conventional time frame for the migration of “homo sapiens” out of Africa [2], (see Figure 1.1), humans invented new and useful ways of doing things.1 Technology has advanced ever since, in an accelerating fashion, and we hope to provide an understanding of a current forefront of technological advance called nanotechnology, which specifically deals with small objects and the laws of nature that describe these small objects [1].

Figure 1.1 A speculative but data-based map of human migrations, from genomic technology. Homo sapiens migrations, with approximate dates in thousands of years, are tracked by changes in human DNA. We discuss this in Chapter 4.

(NG Maps/National Geographic Stock).

Technology, often based on discovery, is knowledge on how to get things done, and the tools to make use of that knowledge. This is a practical matter, often a matter of life and death. Stone age tools have been found dating to about 2.4 million years ago. Then came the Bronze age and the Iron age. In 1200 BC, the Hittites were the first to use iron in weapons. We can say that advanced metal technology started long ago [3–7].2 To understand nanotechnology it is useful to review some of the previous technological advances in the 50 000-year history.

1.2 The Industrial Revolution: Watt’s Steam Engine, Thermodynamics, Energy Sources

The development of the wheel, advanced control of fire, and the development of copper, bronze and iron technologies, set the stage for the more recent industrial revolution. The industrial revolution, based on the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1776, led quickly to the steam locomotive in 1804. This required a of the technologies for making fire and elaboration of wheels and axles to include gears and pistons, requiring knowledge of metals to make strong components. The steam engine also brought to the fore knowledge of thermodynamics, a science that could improve the efficiency of engines based upon steam. The concept and measurement of temperature, an aspect of modern science, was part of that advance.