Diamond Now or Diamond Later?

K. Eric Drexler, founder of the field first known simply as nanotechnology, then as molecular nanotechnology, and now as molecular manufacturing, has raised a bit of a ruckus within the advanced nanotech community.

On his new blog, Metamodern, Drexler openly challenges the assumption that diamond mechanosynthesis (using mechanical means to combine carbon atoms into diamond molecules, then make structures, and eventually products) is a good first step for researchers to pursue.

Eric uses forceful language to indicate his frustration:

How did the idea of molecular manufacturing — a general approach to organizing mechanosynthesis — been become so closely identified with making diamond?

[D]iamond is in many ways a true wonder-material... Diamond does, however, have a grave shortcoming: synthesis has been, and continues to be, difficult and expensive. Stubbornly so.

The methods I’m familiar with require either high temperatures and ultrahigh pressures, or highly reactive gas-phase species interacting with a hot surface in a vacuum chamber. Neither process is suited to atomically precise control. Advanced mechanosynthetic methods (of the sort analyzed in Chapter 8 of Nanosystems) will eventually erase this problem, but the emphasis here is on the words “advanced” and “eventually”...

Considering the difficulties of diamond synthesis, why treat diamond mechanosynthesis as if it were a necessary first step toward molecular manufacturing? Building a tiny bit of diamond this way would of course be an impressive lab demo, but the plausible technologies for achieving this seem difficult to extend, and I doubt that they would be very useful in any general sense.

It appears that Eric is actively trying to distance himself from those advocating the early pursuit of diamond mechanosynthesis, even as he acknowledges that the ideas he now objects to are drawn from his own writings. (This is reminiscent of his partially successful attempt to disown grey goo, an effort that hasn't worked entirely and in fact has backfired in some ways; various journalists act as though Drexler is simultaneously withdrawing all his early ideas concerning nanotech, not just his worries about out-of-control replicators.)

In response, Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Ralph Merkle, founders of the Nanofactory Collaboration and former colleagues of Drexler, quickly restated their commitment to the diamond mechanosynthesis approach by stating:

There appears to be some confusion as to who is advocating the direct-to-DMS approach to molecular manufacturing. We are.

Our assessment is that diamondoid mechanosynthesis (DMS), including highly-parallelized atomically-precise diamondoid fabrication, is the quickest currently feasible route to a mature molecular nanotechnology, including nanofactories.

We do not think that DMS is a “necessary first step” for molecular manufacturing, and we wish the best of luck to those pursuing other paths. However, we do think DMS is a highly desirable first step, since it offers a much faster route to mature nanosystems than competing approaches. We disagree with the statement that “diamond synthesis seems almost irrelevant to progress toward advanced nanosystems.” We have a favorable view of the feasibility of the direct-to-DMS approach – a favorable view supported by hundreds of pages of detailed analysis in recently-published peer-reviewed technical journal papers and by gradually-evolving mainstream opinion.

CRN is, and always has been, neutral on whether "direct-to-DMS" is more or less likely to succeed than other approaches. Our focus remains on the implications of exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing, whenever and however it is achieved. We're closely monitoring progress toward that end in as many areas as we can follow and will keep you posted if this current controversy results in any sort of new agreements or clarification on goals and methods.

Mike Treder

Comments

[Andrew]

This is akin to arguing whether world prosperity will lead to world peace, or vice versa: in the light of the possibilities, it doesn't matter, as long as we get there as soon as possible. In fact, given adequate resources, we should be trying parallel approaches, in both my analogy as well as the topic at hand.

[Perry E. Metzger]

Andrew, with respect, that analogy is very wrong. This is a technical question, with reasonable amounts of information available, and not a woolly sociology question. There also are not unlimited resources -- in fact, I'd say right now there are nearly no resources being expended on diamondoid at all, and very little elsewhere.

[kurt9]

You guys have got it wrong with regards to Drexler. Drexler was an active member of L-5 Society and was also involved with SSI during the late 70's. It was during this time he was conceiving of manufacturing techniques for producing the solar power satellites and what not that he came up with the idea of manufacturing on the molecular level. His first concept of this was very much an extension of bio-engineering (a truly synthetic biology). This was his concept up until 1985. In 1985, Benning and one other guy won the Nobel prize for the invention of the STM. The STM took Eric (and many others) by surprise and he, among others, began to wonder if a more direct "mechanical" method of nanotechnology was possible. He wrote and published "Engines of Creation" the following year.

The idea of nano-mechanical technology got more of a boost during this time because many research groups were making their own STMs and doing lots of imaging with them (crude STMs are rather easy to make). Also, about the same time, we had the confluence of the space people, the Alcor cryonics people, and libertarians in SoCal start to show up at each others' parties and start to network with each other. The idea of nano-mechanical technology and the easy early successes with STM's naturally fed into these groups, which led to the whole vision of nano-mechanical technology. We believed that STM technology would lead directly to a comprehensive nano-mechanical technology. These were very heady times indeed!

An entire instrumentation industry based on STM/AFM was launched during this time and Virgil Euling got rich when he sold Digital Instruments to Veeco and built himself a Harley-Davidson motorcycle museum.

The whole vision of nano-mechanical nanotech was driven by the invention and commercialization of STM/AFM instrumentation.

The problem is that STM/AFM technology has failed to lead to a complete nanofabrication technology. The current AFM instrumentation is very robust and can do a great many kinds of imaging and scanning capabilities. However, a comprehensive nano-manufacturing capability is not in the cards by this approach.

I think Drexler has realized this over the years and has now returned to his earlier vision of nano-manufacturing based on bio-engineering rather than nano-mechanics.