My MIT doctoral dissertation, “Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing
with Applications to Computation”, is a draft of Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation, and MIT has now made it available as a 30 MB pdf. You can download it here.
The Nanosystems project began as notes for a seminar that I taught at Stanford, grew toward a book draft, developed into an MIT doctoral dissertation, and finally — after a few additions, technical review, and editing — became the published work.
The book and dissertation apply familiar physical principles and conservative engineering analysis to explore specific classes of advanced nanosystems, concluding that advanced, atomically precise manufacturing systems could be implemented by means of systems at that same level of technology.
In addition, it outlines how to get there — the general means by which experimentally accessible fabrication technologies can be used to implement progressively more capable fabrication technologies. (Next steps and implementation paths have been a major theme of what I’ve written here on Metamodern, for example, in several of the categories here.)
I plan to do a series of posts that examine these topics, outlining the technical foundations and results in Nanosystems together with perspectives looking forward from ongoing research accomplishments to potential future developments.
The extended table of contents for the dissertation (below) gives a good indication of the scope of the analysis:
Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing
with Applications to Computation
| Introduction | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1.1. | What is molecular nanotechnology?———————————— | 13 |
| 1.2. | Comparisons | 20 |
| 1.3. | The approach in this volume | 23 |
| Part I. Physical principles | ||
| 2. Classical magnitudes and scaling laws | ||
| 2.1. | The role of classical continuum models | 33 |
| 2.2. | Scaling of classical mechanical systems | 34 |
| 2.3. | Scaling of classical electromagnetic systems | 40 |
| 2.4. | Scaling of classical thermal systems | 45 |
| 2.5. | Beyond the classical continuum model | 47 |
| 3. Potential energy surfaces | ||
| 3.1. | The PES concept | 49 |
| 3.2. | Quantum theory and approximations | 50 |
| 3.3. | Molecular mechanics | 56 |
| 3.4. | Potentials for chemical reactions | 80 |
| 3.5. | Continuum representations of surfaces | 83 |
| 3.6. | Molecular models and the continuum approximation | 88 |
| 3.7. | Further reading | 90 |
| 4. Molecular dynamics | ||
| 4.1. | Models of dynamics | 93 |
| 4.2. | Non-statistical mechanics | 93 |
| 4.3. | Statistical mechanics | 96 |
| 4.4. | PES revisited: accuracy requirements | 110 |
| 4.5. | Further reading | 114 |
| 5. Positional uncertainty | ||
| 5.1. | Uncertainty in engineering | 115 |
| 5.2. | Thermally excited harmonic oscillators | 116 |
| 5.3. | Elastic extension of thermally excited rods | 122 |
| 5.4. | Bending of thermally excited rods | 133 |
| 5.5. | Piston displacement in a gas-filled cylinder | 141 |
| 5.6. | Longitudinal variance from transverse rod deformation | 144 |
| 5.7. | Conclusions | 150 |
| 6. Transitions, errors, and damage | ||
| 6.1. | Overview | 153 |
| 6.2. | Transitions between potential wells | 154 |
| 6.3. | Placement errors | 166 |
| 6.4. | Thermomechanical damage | 172 |
| 6.5. | Photochemical damage | 192 |
| 6.6. | Radiation damage | 197 |
| 6.7. | Device and system lifetimes | 200 |
| 7. Energy dissipation | ||
| 7.1. | Overview | 205 |
| 7.2. | Radiation from forced oscillations | 206 |
| 7.3. | Phonons and phonon scattering | 216 |
| 7.4. | Thermoelastic damping and phonon viscosity | 229 |
| 7.5. | Compression of square and harmonic potential wells | 232 |
| 7.6. | Transitions among time-dependent wells | 238 |
| 7.7. | Conclusion | 243 |
| 8. Mechanosynthesis | ||
| 8.1. | Overview | 245 |
| 8.2. | Perspectives on solution-phase organic synthesis | 248 |
| 8.3. | Solution-phase synthesis and mechanosynthesis | 251 |
| 8.4. | Reactive species | 272 |
| 8.5. | Forcible mechanochemical processes | 283 |
| 8.6. | Mechanosynthesis of diamondoid structures | 306 |
| 8.7. | Conclusions | 320 |
| Part II. Components and systems | ||
| 9. Nanoscale structural components | ||
| 9.1. | Overview | 325 |
| 9.2. | Nanomechanical components in a structural context | 326 |
| 9.3. | Surface effects on stiffness in nanoscale components | 327 |
| 9.4. | Control of shape in nanoscale components | 333 |
| 9.5. | Nanoscale components of high rotational symmetry | 336 |
| 9.6. | Conclusions | 339 |
| 10. Mobile nanomechanical components | ||
| 10.1. | Overview | 341 |
| 10.2. | Spatial fourier transforms of nonbonded potentials | 342 |
| 10.3. | Sliding of irregular objects over regular surfaces | 346 |
| 10.4. | Symmetrical sleeve barings | 355 |
| 10.5. | Other sliding-interface bearings (and bearing systems) | 375 |
| 10.6. | Atomic-axle bearings | 378 |
| 10.7. | Gears, rollers, and belts | 379 |
| 10.8. | Barriers in extended systems | 387 |
| 10.9. | Dampers, detents, and clutches | 388 |
| 10.10. | Conclusions | 389 |
| 11. Nanomechanical computational systems | ||
| 11.1. | Overview | 391 |
| 11.2. | Digital signal transmission with mechanical rods | 392 |
| 11.3. | Gates and logic rods | 393 |
| 11.4. | Registers | 409 |
| 11.5. | Combinational logic systems and finite-state machines | 415 |
| 11.6. | Clocking and power distribution for CPU-scale systems | 421 |
| 11.7. | Power supply systems | 426 |
| 11.8. | Cooling | 432 |
| 11.9. | Interfacing to conventional microelectronics | 433 |
| 11.10. | Conclusion | 435 |
| 12. Molecular manufacturing systems | ||
| 12.1. | Overview | 437 |
| 12.2. | Molecule acquisition and concentration | 438 |
| 12.3. | Molecule sorting | 440 |
| 12.4. | Ensuring that sites are occupied | 440 |
| 12.5. | Molecule processing | 441 |
| 12.6. | Reagent application | 444 |
| 12.7. | Larger-scale assembly | 445 |
| 12.8. | Conclusion | 446 |
| Part II. Implementation strategies | ||
| 13. Positional synthesis exploiting AFM mechanisms | ||
| 13.0. | Abstract | 449 |
| 13.1. | Introduction | 449 |
| 13.2. | Tip-array geometry and forces | 450 |
| 13.3. | Molecular tips in AFM | 453 |
| 13.4. | Imaging with molecular tips | 455 |
| 13.5. | Positional synthesis | 456 |
| 13.6. | Summary | 391 |
| Appendix | ||
| Comparison with other work | ||
| A.1. | Overview | 459 |
| A.2. | How related fields have been divided | 460 |
| A.3. | Mechanical engineering and microtechnology | 461 |
| A.4. | Chemistry | 461 |
| A.5. | Molecular biology | 462 |
| A.6. | Protein engineering | 463 |
| A.7. | Proximal probe technologies | 464 |
| A.8. | Feynman’s 1959 talk | 465 |
| A.9. | Conclusion | 466 |
| References | ||
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
You are a genius Mr Drexler
We need people like you, progressist mind, revolutionary mints, to restruct the way that the men product your material life, to think in ambient.
We need progressists like you, like others scientist that would like another world, no poor, no polution, a superior step of human being civilization
I hope you mark the history with others like you
And “Viva o futuro”, “Viva” The future
Agreed, nanotechnology is here to stay. I am thinking ton becoming an entrepreneur to be able to ride the wave from the start.
written almost 20 years ago…and since then little progress towards the goal of MM…why?
Great things are slow to come into fruition. And nanotechnology is not the exception. I bet it’s only 15-20 years before we see a mature science.
@ Stefan — There has been a great deal of progress in developing the technology base for early-generation (biomimetic) productive nanosystems, which I see as the next major step. The pieces of technology in this area are ready to be pulled together, but to do so is a challenge more of engineering than of science, and in an area where research is organized to pursue science, rather than engineering. (I’ve discussed the deep difference between the two here and especially here.)
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