Nanotechnology, replication, and low cost manufacturing

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Nanotechnology, replication, and low cost
manufacturing

• Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D.
• Principal Fellow

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Health, wealth and atoms
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Arranging atoms

• Diversity
• Precision
• Cost

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Richard Feynman,1959
Theres plenty of room at the bottom
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1980s, 1990s
Experiment and theory
Binnig and Rohrer
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President Clinton, 2000
The National Nanotechnology Initiative

• Imagine the possibilities materials with ten
  times the strength of steel and only a small
  fraction of the weight -- shrinking all the
  information housed at the Library of Congress
  into a device the size of a sugar cube --
  detecting cancerous tumors when they are only a
  few cells in size.

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Positional assembly
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Experimental
100 microns
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Experimental
H. J. Lee and W. Ho, SCIENCE 286, p. 1719,
NOVEMBER 1999
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Theoretical
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Self replication
A redwood tree (sequoia sempervirens) 112 meters
tall Redwood National Park
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Complexity (bits)

• Von Neumann's constructor 500,000
• Mycoplasma genitalia 1,160,140
• Drexler's assembler 100,000,000
• Human 6,400,000,000
• NASA over 100,000,000,000

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Self replication
The Von Neumann architecture
Universal Computer
Universal Constructor
http//www.zyvex.com/nanotech/vonNeumann.html
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Self replication
Replicating bacterium
DNA
DNA Polymerase
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Self replication
Drexlers proposal for an assembler
http//www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_6.h
tml
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Broadcast architecture
Macroscopic computer
http//www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRep.html
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Advantages of broadcast architecture
Broadcast replication

• Smaller and simpler no instruction storage,
  simplified instruction decode
• Easily redirected to manufacture valuable
  products
• Inherently safe

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Exponential assembly
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Replication
The goal low manufacturing costs

• Potatoes, lumber, wheat and other agricultural
  products have costs of roughly a dollar per
  pound.
• Molecular manufacturing will eventually make
  almost any product for a dollar per pound or
  less, independent of complexity. (Design costs,
  licensing costs, etc. not included)

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An overview of replicating systemsfor
manufacturing
Replication

• Advanced Automation for Space Missions, edited by
  Robert Freitas and William Gilbreath NASA
  Conference Publication 2255, 1982
• A web page with an overview of replication
  http//www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRep.html

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Replication
Popular misconceptionsreplicating systems must

• be like living systems
• be adaptable (survive in natural environment)
• be very complex
• have on-board instructions
• be self sufficient (uses only very simple parts)

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Feynman, 1959

• The problems of chemistry and biology can be
  greatly helped if our ability to see what we are
  doing, and to do things on an atomic level, is
  ultimately developed -- a development which I
  think cannot be avoided.

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Impact
The impact of a new manufacturing
technology depends on what you make
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Impact
Powerful Computers

• Well have more computing power in the volume of
  a sugar cube than the sum total of all the
  computer power that exists in the world today
• More than 1021 bits in the same volume
• Almost a billion Pentiums in parallel

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Impact
Lighter, stronger, smarter, less expensive

• New, inexpensive materials with a
  strength-to-weight ratio over 50 times that of
  steel
• Critical for aerospace airplanes, rockets,
  satellites
• Useful in cars, trucks, ships, ...

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Impact
Nanomedicine

• Disease and ill health are caused largely by
  damage at the molecular and cellular level
• Todays surgical tools are huge and imprecise in
  comparison

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Impact
Nanomedicine

• In the future, we will have fleets of surgical
  tools that are molecular both in size and
  precision.
• We will also have computers much smaller than a
  single cell to guide those tools.

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Impact
Size of a robotic arm 100 nanometers
8-bit computer
Mitochondrion 1-2 by 0.1-0.5 microns
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Impact
Mitochondrion
Size of a robotic arm 100 nanometers
Typical cell 20 microns
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Respirocytes
http//www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Respirocytes
.html
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Human impacton the environment
The environment

• Population
• Living standards
• Technology

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Reducing human impacton the environment
The environment

• Greenhouse agriculture/hydroponics
• Solar power
• Pollution free manufacturing

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How long?

• The scientifically correct answer is I
  dont know
• Trends in computer hardware suggest early in this
  century perhaps in the 2010 to 2020 time frame
• Of course, how long it takes depends on what we do