Nanotechnology: there is plenty of room at the bottom

Peter Grütter

In 1959, Richard Feynman gave a lecture entitled “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom” (reprinted in Engineering and Science, Feb. 1960, p. 22-36). Feynman suggested a variety of experiments and technologies that might be achieved at very small scales. This is an area that is currently getting a lot of hype. Some recent suggestions sound like science fiction, although we are not yet seeing articles titled “Honey, I Shrunk the Factory”. Nevertheless, terrific advances have been and are being made. In this talk, I will introduce some of the scientific and technological challenges and successes at the nanoscale frontier. The lessons these experiments teach us extend beyond the new physics in small dimensions to encompass the general process of learning from biology and chemistry. By then going beyond what is observed in the natural world to deliberate engineering on an atomic scale, we are, indeed, beginning to move into the Room at the Bottom.