Developments in Nanotechnology

摘要

Will nanotechnology change the face of warfare and what is the current status of technology? Back in 2011, "father of nanotechnology" K. Eric Drexler called for international agreement to prevent an arms race that its transformational potential could trigger. Although nanomaterials - those with structure at the scale of billionths of a metre controlled by engineering processes - are already entering the military market in applications as diverse as aircraft structures, optics, armour, batteries, and sensors, Drexler's warning concerned much broader and more profound change. Once engineers have made the tools to construct other tools to make machines that can be used for Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM) on an industrial scale, he argues, the implications in terms of quantity, quality, speed and cost of production could cause change as disruptive as the industrial and microelectronics revolutions.