Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom Nanotechnology

Richard P. Feynman (1918-88), winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in physics, presented a now-famous talk, titled There s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, at an American Physical Society meeting on December 29, 1959. In challenging scientists to explore miniaturization to its fundamental limits he said  

But I am not afraid to consider the final question as to whether, ultimately. .. in the great future. .. we can arrange the atoms the way we want, the very atoms, all the way down What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them (within reason, of course-, you can t put them so that they are chemically unstable, for example). 

Although it is tempting to view molecules as mechanical motor parts, it is important to remember that quantum effects are significant at this 

Stoddarts nano-switch design, in which a catenate molecule is able to move between two positions of equcd energy controlled by oxidizing or reducing conations. Such bifunctional switches can serve as parts of nanomachines or nancKomputers. 

Charles M. Lieber (1959- ), at Harvard, is designing connections (nanowires) between nanodevices. Buckytubes are potential nanowires and are being investigated in a number of laboratories. Buckytubes are not produced in a uniform size and this limits their utility since a mixture typically contains good electrical conductors as well as semiconductors. Lieber s group employs other approaches toward obtaining uniform 

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