Soft Machines Nanotechnology and Life

by Jones, Richard A. L.

• ISBN13: 9780198528555
• ISBN10: 0198528558
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Enthusiasts look forward to a time when tiny machines reassemble matter and process information with unparalleled power and precision. But is their vision realistic? Where is the science heading? As nanotechnology (a new technology that many believe will transform society in the next on hundred years) rises higher in the news agenda and popular consciousness, there is a real need for a book which discusses clearly the science on which this technology will be based. Whilst it is most easy to simply imagine these tiny machines as scaled-down versions of the macroscopic machines we are all familiar with, the way things behave on small scales is quite different to the way they behave on large scales. Engineering on the nanoscale will use very different principles to those we are used to in our everyday lives, and the materials used in nanotehnology will be soft and mutable, rather than hard and unyielding. Soft Machines explains in a lively and very accessible manner why the nanoworld is so different to the macro-world which we are all familiar with. Why does nature engineer things in the way it does, and how can we learn to use these unfamiliar principles to create valuable new materials and artefacts which will have a profound effect on medicine, electronics, energy and the environment in the twenty-first century. With a firmer understanding of the likely relationship between nanotechnology and nature itself, we can gain a much clearer notion of what dangers this powerful technology may potentially pose, as well as come to realize that nanotechnology will have more in common with biology than with conventional engineering.

Author Biography

Richard A. L. Jones: Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Sheffield

Table of Contents

Fantastic voyages	1	(14)
A new industrial revolution?	1	(2)
The radical vision of nanotechnology	3	(4)
Nano everywhere	7	(1)
Into the nanoworld	8	(7)
Looking at the nanoworld	15	(23)
Light microscopy	18	(2)
Seeing a single (big) molecule	20	(3)
Other types of waves	23	(1)
The electron microscope	24	(6)
Imaging versus scattering	30	(1)
Scanning probe microscopy	31	(4)
Living in the nanoworld	35	(3)
Nanofabrication	38	(16)
Introduction	38	(1)
The transistor	39	(2)
Making integrated circuits	41	(6)
Moore's law and beyond	47	(2)
Direct writing	49	(1)
Cheaper, smaller, more curved---soft lithography	50	(1)
Making things besides chips---MEMS and NEMS	51	(3)
The Brownian universe: physics at the nanoscale	54	(34)
Introduction	54	(1)
Fluid mechanics	55	(3)
Flying nanobots?	58	(2)
Brownian motion	60	(4)
Stickiness	64	(9)
The mechanical properties of small things	73	(5)
Quantum effects	78	(7)
Fantastic voyage' revisited	85	(3)
Making soft machines	88	(38)
Self-assembly	91	(2)
Order from disorder	93	(3)
Soap	96	(4)
From shoe soles to opals	100	(5)
Self-assembly and life	105	(2)
Protein folding	107	(3)
Nucleic acids	110	(3)
Living soft machines	113	(4)
Beyond simple self-assembly	117	(3)
How molecules evolve	120	(3)
Copying nature	123	(3)
Machines and mechanisms	126	(42)
Introduction	126	(2)
Prime movers---engines large and small	128	(26)
Mechanisms and machines	154	(10)
Sensors and transducers	164	(4)
Welware: chemical computing from bacteria to brains	168	(18)
Introduction---Galvani and the chemical computer	168	(1)
Reflex, instinct, and intelligence	169	(3)
How E. Coli responds to its environment	172	(3)
The principles of chemical computing	175	(2)
The social life of cells	177	(1)
Why big animals needed to develop a longer-ranged signalling mechanism	178	(1)
Nervous energy	179	(3)
How brains are different from computers	182	(4)
Single-molecule electronics	186	(26)
The green goo catastrophe	186	(2)
Dyes and photosynthesis	188	(3)
Clean power for all---non-conventional photovoltaics	191	(5)
Organic metals and plastic semiconductors	196	(4)
Roll-up television screens and paint-on lasers	200	(2)
Plastic logic	202	(2)
The ups and downs of molecular electronics	204	(3)
Single molecules as electronic devices	207	(3)
Integrating single-molecule electronics	210	(2)
Our nanotechnological future	212	(7)
Which way for nanotechnology?	212	(3)
What should we worry about?	215	(4)
Further reading	219	(6)
Index	225