Nanotechnology is a group of emerging technologies in which the structure of matter is controlled at the nanometer scale, the scale of small numbers of atoms, to produce novel materials and devices that have useful and unique properties. Some of these technologies impose only limited control of structure at the nanometer scale, but they are already in use, producing useful products.
Foresight has had a long-standing interest in the capabilities that await at the other end of this development process, when advanced nanotechnology will enable construction of complex systems in which each individual atom is specified and serves a designed function in the system. To read about these capabilities and their consequences:
Molecular manufacturing is the name given to the proposal that molecular machine systems will eventually be able to manufacture most objects, including large objects, from the molecule up, building complex products with atomic precision.
The proposal that advanced nanotechnology will include artificial molecular machine systems capable of building complex systems to atomic precision has been controversial within the scientific community. In general, proponents have argued from the grounds of theoretical analysis coupled with the existence of multiple plausible implementation pathways from current technology, while opponents have been unimpressed with theoretical arguments in the absence of direct experimental demonstration of crucial milestones.
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