This is not science fiction but science fact. Two years have passed since IBM scientists spelled out their company logo by moving 35 xenon atoms with a device called a scanning- tunneling microscope. Yet in that short time, nanotechnology has demonstrated the potential to become an important, pervasive technology. Today, for example, microsensors tinier than the width of a human hair are routinely being used in automobile anti-lock braking systems. Georgia Tech Is Thinking Small t Georgia Tech, electrical engineers, physicists, chemists, materials scientists and researchers from a host of other disciplines are involved in a number of nanotech projects.
Tech is involved in all three.
The scanning-tunneling microscope is one of the workhorses of nanotechnology, and the progenitor of all other atomic imaging devices. Developed in the early 1980s, it was the first device to actually provide pictures of atoms. It can also move individual atoms and molecules. These devices would be smaller, faster and less expensive than anything currently on the market. This development has profound implications.