Nanotech Impact Arc

As nanotechnology develops, it will gradually become obvious that there is a continuum from nanomaterials, through nanodevices, to nanofactories. Useful nanomaterials have been in development and production for several years now. This year, we are starting to see significant progress in combining nanoscale parts into working devices.

Although molecular manufacturing is fundamentally different from nanoscale technologies in many ways, both in approach and implications, it is becoming increasingly possible to chart the evolution of goals -- and the development pathways -- from materials to devices to factories.

This idea is laid out clearly in "Developing Molecular Manufacturing," by CRN's Chris Phoenix. (In February 2005, we presented an earlier version of this paper, by request, to a committee organized by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in preparation for their Congressionally mandated investigation of molecular manufacturing.)

The Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, being developed by the Battelle research group and the Foresight Nanotech Institute, will take the continuum concept much further during 2006.

Now, we must consider the impacts.

Because the societal and environmental impacts of nanofactories will be so much more profound than the impacts of either nanomaterials or nanodevices, we must do three things:

1) Gain a more reliable understanding of when the nanofactory step could be achieved.

2) Gain a better understanding of the nature, severity, and interaction of projected impacts.

3) Examine in detail the possible policy responses -- or other practices and principles that might apply -- and come to a consensus about the safest and most responsible approach for dealing with the potentially disruptive impacts of the technology.

Item 1 above is being addressed by the Foresight Roadmap Initiative. Items 2 and 3 are the focus of the CRN Global Task Force on Implications and Policy.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Michael Anissimov]

CRN could benefit from specifying, in advance, a sequence of likely milestones in the nanodevice arena that represent prerequisites for nanofactory development. The Foresight Roadmap project is only addressing nanomaterials? Its title suggests that it is about productive nanosystems. At the very least it will also incorporate nanodevices? If not, then I'd have to ask: what has Foresight become?

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Michael, the statement "Item 1 above is being addressed by the Foresight Roadmap Initiative," refers to this item: "1) Gain a more reliable understanding of when the nanofactory step could be achieved."

[Phillip Huggan]

I'm really curious what conclusions the Roadmap produces. The only timeline method I know of is extrapolating Moore's Law and a few derivatives utilizing this. Researcher brilliance and/or tech advances can cut through inertia, but I don't yet know enough about nanotech engineering to forecast how or when.

[Sigma]

Do you believe that Nanotech, specifically MM will enable Fusion?