"Can we design and construct a device or scheme that can arrange atoms or molecules according to an arbitrary, user-defined blueprint? This is at the heart of the idea of the software control of matter – the creation, perhaps, of a 'matter compiler' which will interpret software instructions to output a macroscopic product in which every atom is precisely placed."
The above is not CRN's writing – it is, in fact, a product of the EPSRC, the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. In January of 2007, EPSRC will call together between 20 and 30 interdisciplinary researchers to brainstorm and develop research proposals toward "Software Control of Matter at the Atomic or Molecular Scale."
What's more, EPSRC has already set aside £1.5 million (almost $3 million) to fund whatever research projects come out of the two-day meeting.
The project was proposed by Philip Moriarty and will be overseen by Richard Jones. Both of them have shown a keen interest in molecular manufacturing; Moriarty has begun a collaboration with Robert Freitas, with an eventual goal of demonstrating carbon dimer deposition by scanning probe. (Freitas wants to take that all the way to direct construction of the first tiny nanofactory, and has announced a Nanofactory Collaboration.)
The EPSRC project is not directly focused solely on molecular manufacturing, but it could certainly encompass molecular manufacturing. The project description invokes both the atomic pick-and-place rapid-prototyping approach familiar to diamondoid enthusiasts, and the self-assembly approach favored by bio-philes.
If the "ideas factory" meeting achieves the broad-minded and forward-looking scope that it seems to be trying for, it has a good chance of generating at least some research that is directly relevant to molecular manufacturing. Regardless of whether self-assembly can build macroscopic products in theory, practical nanoscale fabrication techniques will probably benefit from some form of directly programmable manipulation at the nanoscale. The only way I know to make nanoscale manipulation scaleable to macroscopic levels is to use exponential manufacturing. (A possible exception is engineered bacteria, but last I heard they were still extremely hard to program.) It will be interesting to see whether the "ideas factory" considers direct nanoscale manipulation a goal worth planning for at this point. If so, and if they don't manage to find any reasonable alternative to exponential manufacturing, then they just about have to research molecular manufacturing concepts.
When I have contemplated what might kick-start a targeted molecular manufacturing project, I have imagined something very much like this "ideas factory." A few dozen diverse and creative experts, looking for ways to make direct control of atoms work; significant seed funding for whatever concepts they come up with; and all under the umbrella of a large organization (in this case, the UK government).
It remains to be seen how forward-looking the research proposals will be – the group could easily come up with £1.5 million worth of solid, cautious, worthwhile research that would not advance molecular manufacturing much. And it remains to be seen whether the group will end up focusing on the self-assembly side of the goal. But this will be an effort to watch very closely; it appears to have a chance of kick-starting major momentum toward a molecular manufacturing program.
(Hat tip to Richard Jones's Soft Machines blog, which contains a couple of details I didn't find on the EPSRC site.)
Chris Phoenix
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology weblog blog
This does look promising. If I remember correctly, Philip Moriarty once wrote on this blog how SPMs would soon be able to build interesting structures in three dimensions by computer control, the main problem being how could you take that process and economically scale it up. If someone does create something useful by this pick-and-place method that has powerful implications for various technologies, and it can't be synthesized by any chemical method, it will be interesting to see how the establishment plans on mass producing them w/o molecular nanotechnology. It seems to me that if we get to that point, there will be at least one good effort to make an SPM-like device by the pick-and-place method that can make more of its own kind to start an exponential scale-up.
Posted by: NanoEnthusiast | September 30, 2006 at 04:22 PM
Freakin sweet.
Posted by: Jonathan Pugh | September 30, 2006 at 08:11 PM
I could see this process getting bogged down and non-productive. "Nanotech" has devolved into 'believers vs atheists'.
The "believers" see MNT as a really cool idea, and *want* it to be true - but don't often understand the difficulties or arguments much deeper than "life is nanotech, so nanotech is possible". The believer's attitude is that there's such a huge range of pathways that "might work", that *something* is bound to work, if only experts would *try* to invent around the problems.
The "atheists" have all the real intellectual ammunition, understand the difficulties, and can easily pick apart proposals of approaches to MNT. But they're also stuck - they can't bring themselves to focus on inventing around the problems they see so clearly - because in the process they would get lumped in with the believers. They need only look at Drexler to see what could happen to their reputation among their peers, if the believers were allowed to latch onto them as "disciples of MNT".
And of course, Drexler and some others are stuck in the middle, trying to make some productive progress, burdened by the "amateur faithful", opposed by the "professional non-believers". I'll bet there are many days Drexler wishes he'd never written Engines of Creation...
(The above is not meant as criticism of any group. Not everyone can be an expert and amateurs have a right to be interested in "cool technology stuff". Experts do need to guard their reputations, and certainly aren't obligated to help fulfill the amateurs' wishes. All I'm saying is that it's an unfortunate bind.)
Posted by: Tom Craver | October 02, 2006 at 08:29 PM
Tom, see my response here.
Posted by: Chris Phoenix, CRN | October 05, 2006 at 11:09 PM