NANOTECHNOLOGY—TECHNOLOGY ON A MOLECULAR SCALE - Chemistry: Notable Research and Discoveries - page 38

Circuit board containing integrated circuits (Stefan Witas/
iStockphoto)
silver compounds such as silver bromide, formed an image in the pres-
ence of light. Another application involved charged particles known
as electrons, which formed beams that could be used to strike a phos-
phorus screen and produce light. This process became the basis for the
cathode ray tube (CRT) and early television sets, and is sometimes still
used for this purpose. The electron, along with protons and neutrons,
are components of atoms, and their isolation proved that atoms are not
actually indivisible, as had been earlier believed.
In 1958, Jack Kilby (1923-2005), a researcher at Texas Instruments,
invented a miniature electronic circuit known as an integrated circuit.
Modern integrated circuits, which contain many electronic components
etched on a thin wafer of silicon, have become a vital part of many de-
vices, especially computers. Placing a large number of electronic com-
ponents in such a small area has greatly reduced the size of electronic
equipment.
But even more ambitious goals emerged. The American physicist
Richard Feynman (1918-88) gave a lecture in 1959, “There Is Plenty of
Room at the Bottom,” at a meeting of the American Physical Society.
Feynman's lecture discussed controlling and manipulating objects on a
small scale, and he began by wondering what kind of technology could
write all 24 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the head of a pin.