Abstract :
There are strong nanotechnology research programs across the world with every conceivable application in all economic sectors. Basic discoveries have progressed at an amazing pace, as evidenced by the accumulation of publications in the literature. At present, the development of practical systems and commercial products is the next big challenge. Nanoscale is not a human scale. In many cases, development of practical systems demands seamless integration of nano-micro-macro to produce scaled components and processes. While the ultimate vision in nanotechnology may be an entirely bottom-up approach to building systems, it is unrealistic to expect this to happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Only realistic possibility to achieve tangible results in a reasonable time frame, before the stakeholders run out of patience, is to use nanomaterials in a hybrid approach that involves a systematic nano-micro-macro integration. Such an approach will also allow us to utilize the existing infrastructure in the micro area (MEMS, microelectronics) from the last couple of decades, which would make economic sense. This talk will expand on this theme on product and system development using nanomaterials and nanotechnology. Examples will include a carbon nanotube (CNT) based chemical sensor that has been tested for monitoring air quality in the crew cabin in the International Space Station in 2009 and further developed for security applications; a CNT based biosensor for water quality monitoring and health monitoring; CNT-based X-ray tubes for security and other applications; supercapacitors, and several other developments we have been working on for the last 5-8 years. The author thanks all past and present NASA Ames colleagues for their contributions to the application development efforts, especially Jing Li, Yijiang Lu, Jessica Koehne, Cattien Nguyen, Jinwoo Han, Beomsok Kim, Ami Hannon and Michael Oye.
