Fullerene Nanotechnology
1MRJ Technology Solutions,
Inc. at NASA Ames Research Center
2NASA Ames Research Center
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This is an abstract
for a talk to be given at the
Fifth
Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology.
The full paper is available at
http://science.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/publications/1997/fullereneNanotechnology/
Additional material to be mentioned in this talk is available
at
http://science.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/publications/1997/applications/
Abstract
Recent advances in fullerene science and technology suggest
that it may be possible, in the far future, to design and build
atomically precise programmable machines composed largely of
functionalized fullerenes. Large numbers of such machines with
appropriate interconnections could conceivably create a material
able to react to the environment and repair itself. This paper
reviews some of the experimental and theoretical work relating to
these materials, sometimes called machine phase, including the
fullerene gears and high density memory recently designed and
simulated at Ames.
Advanced materials are routinely used in the construction of
aerospace vehicles because of the substantial performance gains
they enable. Despite many advances, transportation to space still
costs about $10,000 per pound. Drexler proposed a nanotechnology
based on diamond and investigated its potential properties. These
studies and others suggest enormous potential for the role of
diamonoid nanotechnology in aerospace systems. In particular,
McKendree estimates $150-400 per pound transportation cost to
orbit assuming naive use of diamonoid molecular nanotechnology to
improve existing launch vehicle designs.
Unfortunately, methods to realize diamonoid nanotechnology are
at best highly speculative. Recent computational efforts at NASA
Ames Research Center and computation and experiment elsewhere
suggest that a nanotechnology based on machine phase
functionalized fullerenes may be synthetically relatively
accessible and possess great potential for aerospace
applications. This nanotechnology might use carbon nanotubes and
related components as the building blocks of molecular machines.
A viable general purpose machine phase technology requires, at
a minimum, mechanical motion, cooling, power, support structures,
control, a variety of physical components, a system architecture,
and some approach to manufacture. Except for the system
architecture and manufacturing, there is some experimental or
simulation basis in all these areas and each will be examined.
An earlier version of this paper can be found at http://science.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/publications/1997/fullereneNanotechnology/.
It will be updated and revised for the conference.
*Corresponding Address:
Al Globus, MRJ Technology Solutions, phone: 415-604-4404, email: [email protected]
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