SME has let us know that Foresight members get a discount to their upcoming Nanomanufacturing conference in the Boston area on April 22-23, which features three sessions of special interest:
Understanding Nanotechnology, workshop led by Tihamer Toth-Fejel of General Dynamics, to cover topics including: brief history of nanotechnology, taxonomies and roadmaps, near-term passive structures, medium-term active devices and machines, far-term productive nanosystems, metrology, potential problems.
Exponential Manufacturing, also led by Tihamer Toth-Fejel: One of the grand challenges in nanotechnology is to design and assemble nanoscale systems that can build other nanoscale systems, leading to manufacturing systems that can fabricate or assemble additional instances of themselves. This is exponential manufacturing. The RP research project “RepRap” is intended to build all its own parts except for a few off-the-shelf components such as stepper motors, metal rods, and integrated circuits. Nanotechnologies in development may deliver nanoscale nanofactories that can do exponential manufacturing with a very large envelope in less than two decades.
Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, led by David Forrest of the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center: The first edition of the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems was completed in the fall of 2007. Long anticipated by those interested in atomically precise manufacturing (APM), the document:
• Articulates compelling reasons to develop and scale up APM;
• Surveys current capabilities in nanosystem design, modeling, fabrication, and testing;
• Provides examples of intermediate applications that could drive development;
• Identifies a range of technical approaches;
• Outlines strategies for developing more advanced systems; AND
• Recommends ways for existing institutions to focus their efforts toward APM.
With the support and collaboration of partners, The Waitt Family Foundation and Battelle, the Foresight Nanotech Institute aims to identify the gap between manufacturing technologies for today’s basic nanostructured materials, and a manufacturing system based on productive nanosystems to make large atomically precise structures. How can this gap be narrowed and eventually closed? The development of adequate tools to build these systems will require several intermediate stages, each building on the results of the previous stage, and each having its own commercial applications. This presentation will discuss the roadmap, progress made to date, and the next steps.
If you’ve made a donation to Foresight within the last year, you’re a Basic member or above and qualify for the discount. Contact [email protected] for the registration code to use, and say hi to Tihamer and David at the meeting. (Note: it’s okay — and financially smart — to join Foresight just to get this discount!) —Christine
