Nanotechnology

Edited by B.C. Crandall

MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A., 1996.
214 pp. $17.00. ISBN: 0-262-53137-2.

Reviewed by Istvan Hargittai

Nanotechnology is still a frontier science dealing with the invention, construction, characterization, and utilization of molecular devices that have dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers. One nanometer is one ten billionth of a meter or 10 angstroms, atomic sizes are in the order of angstroms, the diameter of the buckyball, the spherical (truncated icosahedral-shaped) C60 molecule is 7 angstroms or 0.7 nanometers, and the structural units in the DNA molecule are repeated at some 34 angstroms, that is, at 3.4 nanometers. Thus building modules of tens of nanometer size contain quite a few atoms, yet these devices are immensely smaller than anything we could have imagined in our bulk environment until recently. Molecular devices, switches, wiring, tubing, encapsulating, etc. are opening new perspectives for technology, being at the same time economical on an unprecedented scale as well as environment-friendly. This book presents staggering possibilities of applications from cosmetic nanosurgery to molecular computers. Given the enormity of potential applications, the book is reserved and carefully annotated. The tone is set in the introductory chapter by the editor and the reader is gently guided into the molecular world on a nanoscale. The discussion is non-technical yet scientific rigor is not sacrificed. The author is meticulous without appearing pedantic in charting the historic background to the emergence of nanotechnology. Topics such as the discovery of the periodic system of the elements or the dangers of the depletion of the ozone layer or the essence of the Rutherford atom model, are all discussed with some facts and a lot of understanding. The notes complement the main text with more data and sufficiently detailed references. The diversity of the rest of the chapters well augment the editor's panoramic introduction, selecting various facets of nanotechnology from more technical questions to future expectations. This small, pleasantly produced and inexpensive book is suitable to whet the appetite of interested lay-persons and professionals alike for more reading on the subject. Given the importance of the subject matter of this book as well as its fashionable disposition, there is no doubt that such a curiosity will be amply possible to satisfy.