Home

Nanorobots

Host: David Pogue tech columnist for NY TIMES This video is about the progression of technology. First flat screens in 1998 costs $12,000 and weighed 85 pounds. The host cut a camera (Sony Cyber-shot) to see the guts and was amazed the there were no moving parts. He then described the computer chip.

The invention of the watch and mainspring (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=508-rmdY4jQ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjZj3XTGTHs ) about 500 years ago and was the first pc. A Swiss watch maker PIERRE GYGAX COO, ULYSSE NARDIN. He claims his watches have more than 400 components and some parts are as small as 0.006mm. (MIDO BARONCELLI watch maker). Next, the talk focuses on the watch oscillator which is the beating heart of the machine. Early clock used the pendulum as is oscillator. The draw is that the machine had to be upright to work. The evolution of the clock-digital watch. The first clocks used pendulum movement this website (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/clocks-watches/clock.htm ) describes pendulum movement and also give an experiment to try. In the 1960 another clock revolution took place when quartz was used. Quartz is silicon which is sand the 2nd most abundant element of the earth and when you send an electric current through it, it vibrates really fast. For the first time a material replaced a machine. Quartz is a semiconductor and can insulate (stop) and conduct (start) an electric current. Other semiconductors are 5B, 6C, 14Si, 32Ge, 33As, 51Sb, 52Te. Semiconductors are materials that change from free flowing conductor to a frozen insulator (insulator happens when the semiconductor is zapping with an electric current). Switches made out of semiconductors are called transistors. The only language that a computer understands is Electricity On (1) and Electricity Off (0)? String a bunch of switches together and you can create a code. Eight switches can represent and thing on a keyboard 01100100 there are 256 or 2^8 possibilities here. The more switches the more power. The silicon transistor is easy to shrink.

In 1960 Gordon Moore predicted the size of transistors will shrink by half every two years and each time doubling the number of switches that can be put on the chip. But Moore’s Law is running out of steam the transistors are about as small as they can get. We now have to develop a way to pack them together more tightly. One possible solution offered by IBM (Frances Ross) is vertical transistors called nanowires.

Other scientists such as Pablo Jarillo-Herrero are now investigating Graphene which lets electrons flow thousands of time as fast as silicone. In 2010 the two Russian scientists who made it won the nobel prize in physics,

The microscopic medicine is here in the world of medicine. There is a such device called the pillcam. Daniel S. Mishkin of Boston Univ administers the pillcam to a patient with hopes in the future that the next generation of this device could biopsy sample tissue or deliver treatment or medication.

Bradley Nelson has created a micro-robot that could cure blindness. The device is only 1/100 of an inch wide. The robot delivers a dose of medicine. It is a magnet and is energized by externally generated electromagnetic field. To make it small the fact that a robot is mechanical is debunked. He had to find a material that would let him eliminate bulky moving parts. Again replacing a machine with a material and the device gets smaller. He chose 6SM Samarium and 27Co Cobalt. When these two elements are combined they are highly sensitive to magnetic fields. So the can be directed without touching them. Dr. Nelson’s assistant shows the micro-robot in action as he and the host practice maneuvering the robot in a pigs eye. Dr. Nelson has ambitions of going smaller and his goal is to build a robot that can swim through blood vessels but the smaller you go the stranger the world becomes. There are physical obstacles in the microscopic realm that must be overcome. Dr. Nelson shows some problems that are some problems in getting around as he demonstrates in an experiment. The friction from the water molecules becomes a major drag. He has developed micro-corkscreswrobots that swim like bacterium the smallest is 30 microns (which is 30 millionths of a meter which is about 1/3 of a hair).

Chad Mirkin explains the strange properties in the infinitesimal (nanometer) world. He explains and illustrates the concept of a nanometer. He explains that nanotechnology is not a new concept. It was used in the middle ages on the stained glass in the Cathedral of Cantebury. Next the host visits the Cathedral and talks to Leonie Seigler who is the head restorer at the Cathedral. Leonie Seliger explains that you don’t just paint the glass but you have to use a chemical process. For example, to make yellow you mix silver with clay, silver and the heat actually produce a yellow glass. In the heating process the silver crystals break down into tiny nanoparticles and turn yellow. Copper gives you brown, red, or green and gold gives you red. She also explains this knowledge of “what makes what color and at what temperature” was closely guarded secret in the Middle Ages. At the English Antique Glass Company the host learned that they make the glass to repair the glass at the Cathedral with 12th century methods. Chad Mirikin explains that changes happen at the smallest possible scale. If you can control the size of a gold particle or shrink the gold down (below 100 namometers) to the size of 13 namometer size it is ruby red in color. At the nano level the particles of gold absorbs shorter wavelengths of light and the redder it appears. At the nano level optical properties are completely different and the shape of the particles also matters. You can adjust color by becoming a nanoarchitect. New properties always lead to new applications. Chad Mirkin (nanosphere test) has developed a test using gold and silver nanoparticles that tests for genetic variations (sequencing DNA Test) in patients. Sam Wickline has created a device (nanobee) smaller than a virus. Designed to seek out cancer cells and destroy them. Sam explains The device uses bee venom (melaton) to treat cancer. Sam show how the bees work in the body.