In this blog post, we will look at the possibilities and impact of how nanotechnology is driving innovation in various industries.
The word “nano” comes from the Greek word “nanos,” which means “dwarf.” At first, it simply meant “small,” but now it is mainly used as a prefix to indicate units such as nanometers and nanoseconds. It indicates an extremely small size of billions of a percent and plays an important role especially in science and technology. Therefore, nanotechnology is a term that collectively refers to technologies that require manipulation or processing at the nanoscale. In this respect, nanotechnology is simply a technology that deals with incredibly small things, so why do so many science magazines these days have nanotechnology and even the term “the nanotechnology era” on their covers?
The development of modern science is rapidly progressing as it becomes possible to manipulate and observe at the nanometer scale. In this blog post, let’s learn more about nanotechnology. Let’s explore how nanotechnology is affecting our lives and what possibilities it will open up in the future.
As described earlier, the term nanotechnology is not limited to any specific technology field, but encompasses all technologies that require manipulation at the nanometer level across science. These technologies can be divided into three broad categories.
The first is the technology of processing or synthesizing nanoscale materials to create microscopic machines or materials. In the world of science, smallness has many advantages. As devices and integrated circuits in the electrical and electronic fields can be manufactured in increasingly smaller sizes, the weight of electronic products has been reduced and their performance has been greatly improved. For example, the performance of the smartphones we use has been dramatically improved thanks to nanotechnology, and the battery life is also getting longer. Nanotechnology also enables the development of innovative medical technologies that can prevent diseases by creating robots of very small size that can move around inside the human body to check and diagnose the body’s condition. Furthermore, methods are being studied to use nanorobots to accurately deliver therapeutic agents or drugs to specific cells or tissues. As such, nanotechnology is being applied to various industries, including the environment and energy, as well as medicine, and is greatly changing our lives.
On the other hand, when a substance reaches the nanometer level, it sometimes exhibits new properties that are completely different from its usual properties. The second category is a technology that aims to improve the performance of equipment or materials by applying these properties. The properties that change at the nanoscale range from optical properties to chemical, mechanical, and electrical properties. To give a few examples, gold is typically golden in color, but when the size is 20 nanometers or less, it becomes reddish, and even within this range, the color changes depending on the size of the particles. In addition, as the size of semiconductors and metals decreases, their electromagnetic properties are maximized at the scale of tens to hundreds of nanometers. Such nano-level structures with new properties are also found in nature. Calcium carbonate, which is not very durable, forms a unique nano-structure only in the shells of poisonous abalone, boasting a strength that cannot be broken even by a truck. In addition, the superhydrophobic structure of the water-repellent lotus leaf is also due to the nanostructure of the leaf surface. Biomimetics is the field of developing new materials or technologies by mimicking these nanostructures, and it is also considered to be one of the important applications of nanotechnology.
Finally, nanotechnology is also used in the observation and analysis of natural phenomena in the microscopic realm that are not normally known. Since the atoms and molecules that make up matter are at the nanoscale, a lot of information about their composition can be obtained using nanotechnology. The beginning of nanotechnology also began with the successful development of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), which allows us to see the bonding state between atoms. Nanoparticles are also used as contrast agents in MRI devices that allow us to scan the inside of the human body in three dimensions, and nanotechnology is helping us to better understand nature in various fields. This advancement in nanotechnology is not just satisfying scientific curiosity, but is also leading to industrial applications that are bringing about major changes in our daily lives.
As such, nanotechnology is influencing almost all areas that represent the most advanced technologies of the modern era. Nanotechnology (NT) has been selected as one of the 6Ts, the next generation of new technologies that will lead the future, along with IT, BT, and others. In Korea, too, it is a promising field that is being promoted for development through the enactment of the Nanotechnology Development Promotion Act in 2002. In particular, the development of new materials based on nanotechnology has been actively taking place recently, and this is expected to bring about groundbreaking changes in various fields such as energy storage, environmental protection, and the development of biopharmaceuticals in the future. We expect that the development of nanotechnology will further advance human technology. It is very interesting to see how nanotechnology will have a greater impact on our daily lives and what kind of innovation it will bring.
