The Rise of Nanotech (September 2012)
Special Editions

Cover; The Rise of Nanotech; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Table of Contents; The Rise of Nanotech; by Staff Editor; 3 Page(s)

Letter from the Editor; The Rise of Nanotech; by Mariette DiChristina; 1 Page(s)

Small World
MARIETTE DICHRISTINA is editor in chief of Scientific American.

Plenty of Room Indeed; The Rise of Nanotech; by Michael Roukes; 8 Page(s)

There is plenty of room for practical innovation at the nanoscale. But first, scientists have to understand the unique physics that governs matter there
MICHAEL ROUKES, professor of physics, applied physics and bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology, heads a large, cross-disciplinary group studying nanoscale systems. He was founding director of Caltech's Kavli Nanoscience Institute from 2003 to 2006, before stepping down to return to research full-time. Among the holy grails his team is chasing are nanodevices to weigh every protein in a single cell and nanodevices to watch the metabolic fluctuations of individual cells in real time through direct measurement of their heat output.

The Art of Building Small; The Rise of Nanotech; by George M. Whitesides and J. Christopher Love; 10 Page(s)

Researchers are discovering cheap, efficient ways to make structures only a few billionths of a meter in size
GEORGE M. WHITESIDES and J. CHRISTOPHER LOVE collaborate on developing unconventional methods of nanofabrication. Whitesides, a professor of chemistry at Harvard University, received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1964 and joined the Harvard faculty in 1982. With co-author and photographer Felice C. Frankel, he has written two books combining science with stunning images. Love is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard in 2004 under the guidance of Whitesides, and in 2012 he won the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.

Molecular Lego; The Rise of Nanotech; by Christian E. Schafmeister; 8 Page(s)

A modest collection of small molecular building blocks enables the design and manufacture of nanometer-scale structures programmed to have virtually any shape desired
CHRISTIAN E. SCHAFMEISTER is an associate professor of chemistry at Temple University, where he is developing shape-programmable molecules. In 1997 he received his Ph.D. in biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, he developed a new way of making peptides more resistant to proteases, rendering them more appropriate as potential drugs. He is a member of the working group preparing the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems for the Foresight Nanotech Institute in Palo Alto, Calif.

Nanotechnology and the Double Helix; The Rise of Nanotech; by Nadrian C. Seeman; 10 Page(s)

DNA is more than just the secret of life—it is also a versatile component for making nanoscopic structures and devices
NADRIAN C. ("NED") SEEMAN trained in crystallography, but his frustrations with a macromolecular crystallization experiment led him to the idea that DNA junctions could be used in a new approach to crystallization. Ever since then, he has been trying to implement this concept and its spin-offs. For the past 24 years Seeman has worked in the department of chemistry at New York University. In 2004 and 2005 he was founding president of the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering. When he was told in the mid-1980s that what he was doing was nanotechnology, his response was similar to that of M. Jourdain, the title character of Molières Bourgeois Gentilhomme, who was delighted to discover that he had been speaking prose all his life.

Bringing DNA Computers to Life; The Rise of Nanotech; by Ehud Shapiro and Yaakov Benenson; 8 Page(s)

Tapping the computing power of biological molecules gives rise to tiny machines that can speak directly to living cells
EHUD SHAPIRO and YAAKOV BENENSON began collaborating to build molecular automata in 1999. Shapiro is a professor in the departments of computer science and biological chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, where he holds the Harry Weinrebe Professorial Chair. He was already an accomplished computer scientist and software pioneer with a growing interest in biology in 1998 when he first designed a model for a molecular Turing machine. In 2004 he received the World Technology Award in biotechnology. Benenson, just completing a master's degree in biochemistry at the Technion in Haifa, became Shapiro's Ph.D. student the following year. In 2010 he joined the faculty at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Basel to establish a synthetic biology group in the department of biosystems science and engineering.

Carbon Nanonets Spark New Electronics; The Rise of Nanotech; by George Gruner; 8 Page(s)

Random networks of tiny carbon tubes could make possible low-cost, flexible devices such as "electronic paper" and printable solar cells
GEORGE GRÜNER, a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, investigates fundamental issues relating to nanoscale phenomena. He has served as chief technology officer at Nanomix in Emeryville, Calif., and he is founder of Unidym in Menlo Park, Calif.; both companies concentrate on developing novel applications of nanotechnology. Grüner's interests include skiing, classical music and technology assessment—not necessarily in that order. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation.

The Promise of Plasmonics; The Rise of Nanotech; by Harry A. Atwater; 8 Page(s)

A technology that squeezes electromagnetic waves into minuscule structures may yield a new generation of superfast computer chips and ultrasensitive molecular detectors
HARRY A. ATWATER is Howard Hughes Professor and Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology. His research interests center on subwavelength-scale photonic devices for computing, imaging and renewable energy applications. In addition to devising plasmonic nanostructures, his group is actively exploring the use of new materials for solar power generation (photovoltaics) as well as the solar-driven generation of chemical fuels.

The Incredible Shrinking Circuit; The Rise of Nanotech; by Charles M. Lieber; 8 Page(s)

Researchers have built nanotransistors and nanowires. Now they just need to find a way to put them all together
CHARLES M. LIEBER spent much of his childhood building—and breaking—stereos, cars and model airplanes. He is now Mark Hyman Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, where he directs a group of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral researchers who focus on nanoscale science and technology. In 2001 Lieber founded NanoSys, Inc., with Larry Bock of CW Ventures and Hongkun Park of Harvard. Work from Lieber's laboratory also helped to form another nanotech company, Nantero, focused on nonvolatile memory. Lieber recently founded Vista Therapeutics, a company focused on nanoelectronics for personalized medicine. In 2012 he received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry.

Less Is More in Medicine; The Rise of Nanotech; by A. Paul Alivisatos; 8 Page(s)

Sophisticated forms of nanotechnology will find some of their first real-world applications in biomedical research, disease diagnosis and, possibly, therapy
A. PAUL ALIVISATOS is a professor in the department of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in physical chemistry in 1986. A fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society, Alivisatos has received many awards for his research on the physical properties of nanocrystals. He is scientific founder of Quantum Dot Corporation, now a subsidiary of Invitrogen, which is working to commercialize the use of semiconductor nanocrystals as fluorescent labels in biomedical tests.

Shamans of Small; The Rise of Nanotech; by Graham P. Collins; 8 Page(s)

Like interstellar travel, time machines and cyberspace, nanotechnology has become one of the core plot devices on which science-fiction writers draw
GRAHAM P. COLLINS is a contributing editor and writer for Scientific American. He is also an occasional science-fiction writer and the webmaster of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.