Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
1
Introduction to Nanotechnology
Waqar Ahmed
a
, Abdelbary Elhissi
a
and Karthikeyan Subramani
b
a
Institute of Nanotechnology and Bioengineering, School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences,
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
b
Department of Orthodontics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA
CHAPTER OUTLINE
1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................3
1.2 Approaches to nanotechnology ..........................................................................................................4
1.3 Nanotechnology on a large scale and volume .....................................................................................5
1.3.1 Top-down approach....................................................................................................... 5
1.3.2 Bottom-up approach ..................................................................................................... 6
1.4 Applications .................................................................................................................................. 11
1.5 Future considerations..................................................................................................................... 15
1.6 Nanobiomaterials in clinical dentistry ............................................................................................. 15
References ........................................................................................................................................... 16
1.1
Introduction
Nanotechnology has been around since the beginning of time. Nature routinely has always used
nanotechnology to synthesize molecular structures in the body such as enzymes, proteins, carbohy-
drates, and lipids which form components of cellular structures. However, the discovery of nano-
technology has been widely attributed to the American Physicist and Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard
Phillips Feynman
[1]
who presented a paper called
“There is plenty of room at the bottom”
in December 29, 1959, at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at California Institute
of Technology. Feynman talked about the storage of information on a very small scale, writing and
reading in atoms, about miniaturization of the computer, building tiny machines, tiny factories, and
electronic circuits with atoms. He stated that “In the year 2000, when they look back at this age, they
will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody began seriously to move in this direc-
tion.” However, he did not specifically use the term nanotechnology. The first use of the word
