Week 8: Nanotechnology + Art

 Nanotechnology is a relatively new field in science, the term having been coined in 1974 by Norio Tanaguchi in the context of controlling processes within semiconductors on a molecular or atomic scale. Similar ideas, though not formally defined, were discussed by Feynman years prior and later elaborated upon in a book by Kim Drexler in a book titled "Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology" (UC Online). Nanotechnology is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the manipulation of materials on an atomic or molecular scale especially to build microscopic devices", but can be more loosely understood to refer to the manipulation of objects and technologies on the scale of nanometers. Though it originally did strictly refer to the first definition, in recent years, the range of products being developed began focusing less and less on how small they could be, and more on maximizing functionality. 

I think it's hard for people to understand nanotechnology, no matter what context it's put in. Sure, there are countless depictions of it in pop culture, but many of these treat it like its basically magic, what with miniscule robots working together like cells or ants to achieve some larger goal. And people are more than happy to accept this portrayal because it's honestly difficult to comprehend it. I think people naturally have difficulty comprehending the abstract, the intangible, and though nanotech is a physical thing, it's far too small to be humanly perceptible. 

A wafer holding the new 2-nanometer chips developed by IBM
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/06/tech/ibm-semiconductor-two-nanometer/index.html

The primary reason why humans have been pushing towards the use of nanotechnology on smaller and smaller scales in recent years is that we like to make things efficient. Efficiency comes in space and speed, and managing to make products such as electrical components small makes them operate exponentially faster. Of course, with everything, the usefulness plateaus at some point, but the last three decades have been a constant race to build an ever smaller computer processor. On the market, many of the major chipmakers like Intel, Apple, and AMD have pushed the boundaries of size, but just this month IBM announced a chip prototype on the scale of two nanometers, with the highest transistor density to date (Webster). By comparison, the Intel Cypress Cove CPU operates on a 14 nm processor size with a peak transistor density of 45 million per square millimeter. The IBM chip has almost eight times that. There have been other amazing applications of nanotechnology, especially in the creation of polymers and so-called "self-repairing" items like screens and fabrics (Wiggers). This is especially promising since people have been talking about speed stagnations on various forums around the internet since at least the mid-2000s. The short of it is, we've already come so far and achieved so much with so little (pun intended), and we're constantly looking to break those barriers. 

Nanotech has a lot of practical applications, but it's fun to look at the things that people choose to do with it just for the sake of it. I could keep talking about the myriad of applications that nanotechnology has, or even go into detail about specifics or subclassifications and all that lovely jazz, but one thing that really struck a chord was nanosculptures. Fundamentally, they have no real purpose beyond looking cool and being a neat demonstration of the scale on which humans can create using nanotech. Maybe the sculptors have some point to make about them, who knows? One artist that I want to showcase in this blog post is Jonty Hurwitz, who I discovered earlier this year for his sculptures that could only be seen in its proper finished form in the reflection of a warped surface. Due to this week's topic, I found out that he also previously explored the medium of sculpture through nanosculpture. Using a technique he pioneered with photogrammetry, he broke the Guinness World Record for the smallest sculpture of a human; the sculptures created were so small that they were imperceptible without the use of a non-optical method of magnification, i.e. a scanning electron microscope (Hurwitz). 

Eyelash Surfer by Jonty Hurwitz
https://jontyhurwitz.com/eyelash-surfer

To an extent, I do think that the "size race" is gratuitous. It's becoming increasingly inefficient to achieve new progress with how small we can create things. In fact, we've already developed technologies that are functionally two-dimensional, being only a single atom thick in width. This is not to say that nanotechnology has hit a dead end, not at all. There are so many fascinating ways in which we could use it, the most touted being in medicine. From surgical robots to nanostructures, there a lot that we can do. The only issue is that we're limited by our technology, because at that atomic level, many of those traditional structures fail to function. So to progress in the world of nanotechnology, I think that we'll have to look big again, something that many might not be so inclined to do.

 

Trust by Jonty Hurwitz
https://jontyhurwitz.com/nano

Works Cited

Hurwitz, Jonty. Eyelash Surfer. 2015. The Art of Jonty Hurwitz, https://jontyhurwitz.com/eyelash-surfer.

Hurwitz, Jonty. “Nano Sculptures by Jonty Hurwitz.” The Art of Jonty Hurwitz, https://jontyhurwitz.com/nano.

Hurwitz, Jonty. Trust. 2014. The Art of Jonty Hurwitz, https://jontyhurwitz.com/nano.

ibm-semiconductor-nanometer-chips-super. 2021. CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/06/tech/ibm-semiconductor-two-nanometer/index.html.

"Nanotech Jim pt1." Youtube, uploaded by UC Online, 21 May 2012, https://youtu.be/q7jM6-iqzzE.

“Nanotechnology.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nanotechnology.

Webster, Sophie. “IBM Creates the World's First 2nm Processor, a Power-Efficient and High-Quality Chip.” Tech Times, 6 May 2021, www.techtimes.com/articles/259947/20210506/ibm-announces-its-first-2nm-processor-a-better-performing-chip-that-uses-less-power.htm.

Wiggers, Kyle. “Scientists Develop Phone Screen That Can Heal Itself.” Digital Trends, Digital Trends, 4 Apr. 2017, www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/self-healing-smartphone-screen/.