Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Chris Binns
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image: © provided by University of Castilla‐La Mancha
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Preface to Second Edition
The original proposal for the first edition was submitted in 2005 with the final version submitted to Wiley in 2009. The experience of trying to write a book on nanotechnology is of the Earth shifting under ones feet as the subject develops as fast as one writes. The aim was to try and cover as broad a range of the topic as possible, which in the case of nanotechnology, requires delving into significant areas of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, materials science, and medicine. A single book inevitably has to have a relatively light touch over a lot of the subject, but the aim was to reach a sufficient depth to be useful as an undergraduate textbook serving as an introduction to many of the subject areas. Hopefully this was achieved, but on the contrary, there was an attempt to explain many of the recent developments without a recourse to too much mathematics or abstract theory so the book would be a useful reference for non‐academic professionals in the field. In all chapters, the most demanding theory was separated out in “Advanced Reading Boxes” so that the basics can be understood without a recourse to mathematics, but this is there for those who want it. The equations in the main text, where they have been included, are as simple as possible.
In a decade there have been huge developments and it was high time to update with a second edition. During that time, I have moved institution from the University of Leicester, UK to la Universidad de Castilla‐La Mancha (UCLM) in Spain, but still working in front‐line research on nanotechnology with my specialist area being gas‐phase synthesis of nanoparticles. The second edition has taken about two years to write, but I have tried to keep ahead of the latest developments, going back and editing completed chapters when necessary. The edition was completed during the Covid19 pandemic of 2020/2021 and the vaccines that emerged are a superb example of some of the nanotechnology that is covered in the book so some description of this has been included. This version is longer, with two extra chapters, including one on graphene, which hardly existed as a topic during the writing of the first edition and is now on everyone's lips. The philosophy has remained the same, however, which is to try and cover everything, and in a two‐level depth so it has as broad audience as possible.
Whatever your use for the book, I hope you enjoy it and get from it the excitement that is fundamental to the topic.
Chris Binns
April 2021
Acknowledgments
I do not think it is possible for a person, at least, a person with a family, to write a book without a good deal of support. In my case, I have had a massive support from my wife, Angela, who has also been a constant source of inspiration and indeed practical help by proof‐reading the book. I dedicate this book to her.
I thank my extended family accrued from two marriages, that is, Callum, Rory, Connor, Edward, Tamsyn, and Sophie for bringing inspiration and joy to my life as well as the inevitable problems. I would also thank my first wife Nerissa for supporting me in my early career and shouldering a large part of the burden of looking after our children.
Finally, I thank my parents who with meager resources supported me in pursuit of higher education despite their feeling that I should get a proper job.
Introduction to Second Edition
It has been 11 years since the first edition of this book was published, and in such a rapidly evolving field it is important to provide an updated report of the current state of affairs. Of course, the basic science has not changed, but in the last 11 years there has been a number of noteworthy developments in the basic tools and materials of nanotechnology and further penetration into commercially available materials and devices. An example is the entirely new branch of nanotechnology that has developed around graphene, which is a single atomic layer of carbon. This material was mentioned in passing in the first edition, but in the intervening 11 years has become a major research field. In this edition, as well as providing an update for the previous work, there are additional chapters describing developments in the research on graphene, nanobubbles, nanofluidics, and nanoscale interfaces. These are all topics that provide additional linkages between the various scientific disciplines that merge to form nanoscience.
World‐wide funding of research in nanotechnology continues to grow. The figure quoted in the first edition for government funding alone was four billion dollars, but the latest available forecast [1] predicts a global nanotechnology market of 125 billion dollars by 2024, a compound annual growth of 28% over the 14 years. As the nanotechnology industry has grown, it has become more appropriate to count the total market as opposed to just government spending, which dominated the figures back in 2010. It is interesting to note that the first edition predicted an annual growth of 20%, which is proving to be an underestimate.
It is clear that nanotechnology is expected to have a significant impact on our lives, so what is it and what does it do? These simple direct questions, unfortunately, do not have simple direct answers, and it very much depends on who you ask. There are thousands of researchers in nanotechnology in the world and one suspects that one would get thousands of different responses. A definition that would probably offend the smallest number of researchers is that, nanotechnology is the study and the manipulation of matter at length scales of the order of a few nanometers (100 atoms or so) to produce useful materials and devices.
This still leaves a lot of room for maneuver. A nanotechnologist working in the cosmetics industry might tell you that it is achieving better control of tiny particles, a few nanometers across (nanoparticles) so that sunscreens or cosmetic creams achieve a smoother distribution over the skin. A scientist working at the so‐called “life sciences interface” might say that it is finding ways of targeting magnetic nanoparticles to tumors in the body in the development of revolutionary cancer treatments. A researcher working on graphene‐based molecular electronics would tell you that it is creating electronic circuits in which the active components are a thousand times smaller than a single transistor on a Pentium IV chip. Some nanotechnologists (a small minority) would also suggest you that it is finding ways to build tiny robots whose components are the size of molecules (nanobots).
We will talk in detail about size scales in Chapter 1, but for the moment consider Figure I.1, which shows, schematically, the size scale of interest in nanotechnology (The Nanoworld) with sizes plotted on a logarithmic scale. For reasons that will become clear in Chapter 1, the upper edge of the Nanoworld is set at about 100 nm. Even though this is hundreds of times smaller than the tiniest mote you can see with your eyes, and is smaller than anything that can be resolved by the most powerful optical microscope, a chunk of matter this size or bigger can be considered to be a “chip off the old block.” That is, a very tiny piece of ordinary material. If we were to assemble pieces of copper or iron this big into a large chunk, the resulting block would behave exactly as we would expect for the bulk material. Thus, nanotechnology does not consider pieces of matter larger than about 100 nm to be useful building blocks.
As shown in Figure I.1, viruses are small enough to be inhabitants of the nanoworld whereas bacteria are much larger, being typically over 10 μm (10 000 nm) in size, though they are packed with “machinery” that falls into the size range of the nanoworld (see Chapter 8, Section 8.1.5.3). Going down in size, the figure shows typical sizes of metal particles, containing ~1000 atoms and bucky balls containing ~100 atoms that can be used to produce advanced materials. The properties of these (per atom) deviate