Molecular nanotechnology

:MNT redirects here. For the Unix directory, see /mnt.

Related Topics:
Unix - /mnt

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Molecular Nanotechnology (MNT) is the conjectured ability to use nanotechnology for "molecular manufacturing", a proposed technology based on positionally-controlled mechanosynthesis guided by molecular machine systems. MNT would involve combining physical principles demonstrated by chemistry, other nanotechnologies, and the molecular machinery of life with the systems engineering principles found in modern macroscale factories. Its most well-known exposition is in the books of K. Eric Drexler. Formulating a roadmap for its development is now an objective of a broadly based technology roadmap project led by Battelle (the manager of several U.S. National Laboratories) and the Foresight Institute. The roadmap should be completed by late 2006.

Related Topics:
Conjectured - Nanotechnology - Molecular manufacturing - Mechanosynthesis - K. Eric Drexler - Battelle - Foresight Institute

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While conventional chemistry employs stochastic processes driven toward some equilibrium to obtain stochastic results, and biology exploits stochastic processes to obtain deterministic results based on complex enzyme-catalyzed reaction chains optimized through billions of years of evolutionary feedback, molecular nanotechnology would employ novel (and as yet unspecified) deterministic nanoscale processes to obtain determistic results. The desire in molecular nanotechnology would be to place molecular moieties in deterministic locations with deterministic orientation to obtain desired chemical reactions, and then to build systems by further assembling the products of these reactions.

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Ralph Merkle has compared today's manufacturing methods (in contrast to mechanosynthesis) to an attempt to build interesting Lego brick constructions while wearing boxing gloves: "Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of LEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together the way you'd like." It has been posited that molecular nanotechnology could offer much cleaner manufacturing processes than today's bulk technology offers.

Related Topics:
Ralph Merkle - Mechanosynthesis - Lego - Boxing

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Is molecular nanotechnology likely to be realized? There is considerable debate in the scientific and engineering communities over this question. For an overview of this evolving debate see, for example, the weblog of Richard Jones

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