NANOTECHNOLOGY is the technology based on the manipulation of individual
atoms and molecules to build structures to
complex, atomic specifications.
CRYSTAL LATTICE is the regular three-dimensional pattern of atoms in a crystal.
GEM is a precious stone or a beautiful crystal, specially when cut and polished.Once a GEM is adecuately described, it is then up to the marketplace to determine relative value. Attempts to assign relative values to each GEM will succeed only if the very updated considerations of the real market place are taken into account.
NANOGEMOLOGY is the technology based on the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules to build CRYSTAL LATTICE for GEM manufacturing as well as any modification of natural CRYSTAL LATTICE for beauty enhancement or codification in any GEM using NANOTECHNOLOGY.
As far as we know, nobody has still ever used the word "nanogemology" in any sense until 30 January 1999.
The unofficial flag bearer of the mineral kingdom and gemmology is related with how much commonly occurs as magnificient crystals. Minerals, found deep within the earth's crust and upon its surface, have been a source of fastination and delight for thousands of years. Minerals are of great economic significance and are of importance in our everyday lives because, with little modification, they can be applied to a myriad of daily uses. Many minerals are wondrous ion their cystalline forms, and some are strikingly beautiful when they are cut and polished as gemstones.
Manufactured materials -steel, bronze, brick, plastic, tungsten, phosphorus, soap, plaster, cement and so on- are not minerals because they are not natural in origin. Man-made materials, even if their chemical composition and structure are identical to a mineral's, do not qualify. Many gems, incluiding ruby, sapphire, and diamond, can be grown in laboratory, but these synthetics are not considered true minerals, but artificial gemstones.
Synthetic gemstones are diferent from imitations and assambled ones. Because there are many inexpensive imitation methods ordinary gemological test will easily identify imitations and assembled stones. Synthetic and assambled gems are not so easy to identify, and there are also some possibilities to discover and manufacture new materials with rare properties and beauty. It is a question of talent for designing and resources for manufacturing new gemstones that can be on fashion, sooner or later, in the worldwide market.
Alchemist's dreams are very old but the science, the technology and the industry for man-made gems which closely duplicates the chemical composition, crystal structure, properties, and apparence of a naturally-ocurrring gem began at the 19th century. In 1819 E. D. Clarke published details of his experiments with the gas blowpipe. The year 1837 saw Marc Antaine Agustin Gaudin, a French chemist, attepm to produce ruby by fusing alum and potassium sulfate in a closed crucible. Now, Vernuil, Nassau-Crowningshield, Chatham, Kashan Czocharlski (pulling) and combination melt techniques are so perfect that syntetic corundum for rubies and sapphires are very difficult to identify, producing inexpensive gemstones with very high quality ("Ruby&Sapphire", R. Hughes, 1997).
Diamond has long held a special place in the hearts and minds both of
scientists and the public at large. For some, the word
diamond conjures up images of brilliant gem stones, wealth and special
occasions. To the scientist, diamond is impressive
because of its wide range of extreme properties. So called 'industrial
diamond' has been synthesised commercially for over 30 years using high-pressure
high-temperature (HPHT) techniques, in which diamond is crystallised from
metal solvated carbon at P~50-100 kbar and T~1800-2300K. World interest
in diamond has been further increased by the much more recent discovery
that it is possible to produce polycrystalline diamond films, or coatings,
by a wide variety of chemical vapour deposition (CVD) techniques using,
as process gases, nothing more exotic than a hydrocarbon gas (typically
methane) in an excess of hydrogen. This CVD diamond can show mechanical,
tribological, and even electronic properties comparable to those of natural
diamond. There is currently much optimism that it will prove possible to
scale CVD methods to the extent that they will provide an economically
viable alternative to the traditional HPHT methods for producing diamond
abrasives and heat sinks, whilst the possibility of coating large surface
areas with a continuous film of diamond will open up whole new ranges of
potential application for the CVD methods ("Synthetic Diamond: Emerging
CVD Science and Technology", Edited by K.E. Spear and J.P. Dismukes, Wiley,
1994, and "CVD Diamond - a new Technology for the Future?", Paul W. May,
Endeavour Magazine, 1995 Elsevier).
Coal and diamonds, sand and computer chips, cancer and healthy tissue: throughout history, variations in the arrangement of atoms have distinguished the cheap from the cherished, the diseased from the healthy. Arranged one way, atoms make up soil, air, and water; arranged another, they make up ripe strawberries. Arranged one way, they make up homes and fresh air; arranged another, they make up ash and smoke.
Our ability to arrange atoms lies at the foundation of technology. We have come far in our atom arranging, from chipping flint for arrowheads to machining aluminum for spaceships. We take pride in our technology, with our lifesaving drugs and desktop computers. Yet our spacecraft are still crude, our computers are still stupid, and the molecules in our tissues still slide into disorder, first destroying health, then life itself. For all our advances in arranging atoms, we still use primitive methods. With our present technology, we are still forced to handle atoms in unruly herds.
A new manufacturing technology looms on the horizon: molecular nanotechnology. Its roots date back to a 1959 talk by Richard Feynman in which he said, "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big."
But the laws of nature leave plenty of room for progress, and the pressures
of world competition are even now pushing us
forward. For better or for worse, the greatest technological breakthrough
in history is still to come ("Engines of Creation. The Coming Era of Nanotechnology",
K. Eric Drexler, Anchor Books in 1986).
The objective of the field of molecular nanotechnology is to develop methods which permit the economic synthesis of most structures permitted by physical law. As the direct attempt to achieve this objective might prove difficult, the problem is often broken down into subobjectives and subgoals. One approach is to assume that a general and inexpensive ability to manufacture complex structures with molecular precision can be achieved by using an assembler.
The design of such a device is further broken down into subsystems, and the design and analysis of the subsystems carried out in greater detail. Various aspects of the over all system design can be considered.
Processes that use mechanical positioning of reactive species to control chemical reactions by either providing activation energy or selecting between alternative pathways will allow us to construct a wide range of complex molecular structures. An example of such a process is the abstraction of hydrogen from diamond surfaces by a radical species attached to a mechanical positioning device for synthesis of atomically precise diamond-like structures. In the design of a nanoscale, site-specific hydrogen abstraction tool, we suggest the use of an alkynyl radical tip. Using ab initio quantum-chemistry techniques including electron correlation we model the abstraction of hydrogen from dihydrogen, methane, acetylene, benzene and isobutane by the acetylene radical. Of these systems, isobutane serves as a good model of the diamond (111) surface. By conservative estimates, the abstraction barrier is small (less than 7.7 kcal mol-1) in all cases except for acetylene and zero in the case of isobutane. Thermal vibrations at room temperature should be sufficient to supply the small activation energy. Several methods of creating the radical in a controlled vacuum setting should be feasible. Thermal, mechanical, optical and chemical energy sources could all be used either to activate a precursor, which could be used once and thrown away, or alternatively to remove the hydrogen from the tip, thus refreshing the abstraction tool for a second use. We show how nanofabrication processes can be accurately and inexpensively designed in a computational framework.
On nanotechnology experimental and theoretical work both support the
idea that we will be able to fabricate precise molecular
structures (such as molecular logic elements) by positioning individual
atoms and molecules. However, even the ability to make
and interconnect a few atomically precise logic elements will have
limited impact when we must make and interconnect at least
trillions of logic elements to surpass projected future lithographic
capabilities.
The only demonstrated method of mass producing complex highly precise
structures at a low cost per kilogram is by
programmable self replicating systems as exemplified by potatoes, wheat,
wood, etc. (Electronics are not cheap: on a per
kilogram basis they are more than one hundred times as expensive as
gold). Unfortunately, it's not clear that such biological
methods will be able to produce the full range of products we desire.
Many of today's products are not made of biological
material and there is no particular reason to believe this situation
will change. Today's artificial computers are not made out of
protein because other materials offer superior performance. Biological
computers, despite their many virtues, have high error
rates, millisecond logic delays and meter-per-second signal propagation
speeds: they are grossly uncompetitive.
While the design and development of non-biological programmable self replicating systems suited to the manufacture of complex high performance computer systems (as well as a range of other high precision products) might at first appear daunting, there has been much theoretical work in this area. Starting with von Neumann's "universal constructor" and "kinematic machine" in the 1950's and continuing through the more recent proposals by Drexler for an "assembler" this work describes a range of possible system designs. Many of these systems are not overly complex by today's engineering standards. More recent work suggests that further simplifications are possible and that research to determine the simplest and most easily manufacturable programmable self replicating system should be pursued.
In the last few years the idea that we should be able to economically arrange atoms in most of the ways permitted by physical law has gained fairly general acceptance. This can be viewed as simply the culmination of a centuries-old trend: the basic objectives of manufacturing are lower cost, greater precision, and greater flexibility in what can be manufactured: as the decades have gone by, we've gotten better and better at it. The limit of low cost is set by the cost of the raw materials and energy involved in manufacture, the limit of precision is the ability to get every atom where we want it, and the limit of flexibility is the ability to arrange atoms in whatever patterns are permitted by physical law. While it seems unlikely that we will ever completely reach these limits, the objective of molecular nanotechnology is to approach them. Manufacturing costs should be low - a dollar a pound or less - almost regardless of what is being manufactured. Almost every atom should be in the right place - while background radiation limits this, error rates of a single atom out of place among many tens of billions seem feasible in properly designed structures under "normal" conditions. And finally, we should be able to make most of the stable structures that are consistent with physical law. As structures become less stable they become more difficult and arguably impossible to make, but this still leaves a vast space of possible structures that are beyond the reach of current methods. In addition, some structures might be stable if only we could make them, but all intermediate states would be unstable. Drexler, for example, has argued that the molecular equivalent of a stone arch (http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_References.html#0025) would be unstable unless all its pieces were in place. The final result would be stable, but all synthetic pathways leading to this result would have to pass through an unstable state, making synthesis impossible.
Most of these ideas and literal quotings on nanotechnology are from
Ralph C. Merkle, at Xerox many of them published in Nanotechnology.
Many in the gemological community question the need for details on mystical beliefs, history, even the gem business it self, paying no attention to non-scientific aspects of the subjetc.
Godehard Lenzen ("The History of Diamond Production and the Diamond Trade, Barrie and Jenkins, 1970) has rightly pointed out that gemology is not merely a subset of mineralogy, but simple noledge of a certain type of merchandise. For us gemology is a rich tapestry of interwoven disciplines. It's threads include not just mineralogy, physics, chemistry, crystallography and geology, but also history, trade, economics, decorative arts, religion, mysticism and magic. Yes, even magic.
Knowledge on gemology is a very very related with culture. Any asset on gemstones must declare the place and the time, where and when it is done. The Holy Bible mention some gemstones and we quote often that "the price of wisdom is beyond rubies" (Job 28:18).
Precious stones were formely of much greater trade importance. Prior to development of mechanized transport in the late 19th century, traders were largely limited to goods that could be carried by man or beast of burden. Long-distance trading generally consisted of goods of compact nature and high value. Thus international commerce consisted principally of silks, spices, gems and other products of simmilar nature ("Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy" 1893, reprinted in "Gemological Digest", 1990).
Much of the human activity concerns discrectionary ability. The world is not composed of black and white, but of infinite shades of gray. Not fixed in space and time, these shades undergo continuous change. We are constantly called upon to make qualitative judgements. Such decisions are made daily -they are part of life- and our success in navigating life is closely tied to how we deal with these challenges.
For instance, society has developed guidelines. While such rules of thumb cannot predict the future of an individual event, if they are based upon the experiences of a large sampling of people, they have utility to the individual over the long haul. But when they are based merely upon "faith", rather than empirical methods, such beliefs constitute dogma.
There is considerable evidence to suggest that many religious and cultural dogmas were at one time based on empiricism. For example, the prohibition against eating pork, so widespread in many cultures, no doubt grew out of the fact that, in early times, those who did eat pork became ill at a higher rate. Unfortunately, when empirical discovery solidifies into immobile dogma, the possibility of future discovery is ruled out. Thus, despite the fact that later human experience has shown that proper cooking can eliminate the illnes-producing components present in pork, the ban remains.
Similarly, acording to the European thought extant diring the time of Colombus, the earth was flat, and it was heresy to think otherwise. This is the difference between empirical beliefs, and those based upon faith alone, i.e., those based on observations and first-hand experience, rather than assumption ("Ruby&Sapphire", R. Hughes, 1997).
In the fields we have described, the pace of events is swift. Within the last five years or so, a number of developments have occurred or come to our attention. Many attempts to survey the world toward which technology is taking us, and in the years to come, technology will advance a long way toward that world.
Science now shows how protein engineering, by making molecular machines
much as living cells do, could provide a path to
more advanced systems, but it is cautious about the time required to
solve the most basic problems. William DeGrado at DuPont reported the first
solid success in de novo protein design. There is now a journal titled
Protein Engineering, and a growing stream of results. What is more, additional
paths to the same goal have emerged, based on different molecules and methods.
The 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Cram, Pedersen, and Lehn
for their work in building large molecular structures from self-assembling
parts. The 1995 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology was awarded to Nadrian
Seeman of New York University for the design and synthesis of DNA structures
joined to form a cubical framework. Chemists have started to speak of doing
"nanochemistry." In recent years, molecular self-assembly has emerged as
a field in its own right.
The possibility that mechanical systems - probe microscopes able to move sharp tips over surfaces with atomic precision - might be used to position molecular tools. Since then, Donald Eigler at IBM demonstrated the ability to move atoms in a vivid and memorable fashion, spelling "IBM" on a surface using 35 precisely arranged xenon atoms. Atom manipulation, too, has taken off as a research field.
Perhaps the clearest indicator is linguistic. Ten years ago the word
"nanotechnology" was almost unknown. It has since become a buzzword in
science, engineering, futurology, and fiction. Both in our laboratory capabilities
and in our expections, we are on our way. There is even hope that we might
learn to handle our technologies better, this time around. ("Engines of
Creation. The Coming Era of Nanotechnology", K. Eric Drexler, Anchor Books
in 1986).
Obviously, high priced gemstone manufacturing is a very good business. Syntethic gemstones are not fake if they are sold on a disclosure basis. However, we would like to point out here some not so obvious reasons to invest in nanogemology.
Looking for beautiful materials the nanotechnology will research and develop tools and systems for many more aims. Some of the most important technical advances have been found just for artistic pourposes. If a laboratory can make some profits selling some man-made beautiful new materials for cutting-sawing, grinding, and polishing for jewellery it can also design and manufacture much more sensitive molecules even for militar defence and national security objectives.
Moreover, there is a first feasible approach from nanotechnology for
gemology using natural high quality gemstones. We can demonstrate the capability
to move atoms in a vivid and memorable fashion, spelling for instance "<http://www.cita.es>"
on a gemstone surface, and even inside the gemstone crystal lattice, using
precisely arranged atoms. Atom manipulation, too, can be used to encode
messages in gemstones. The pay off in this project is enhanced security
for expensive natural gemstones and very rare industrial minerals as well
as synthetic sensitive materials like nuclear power station radiactive
input and output.
The Spanish company Cooperación Internacional en Tecnologías Avanzadas (C.I.T.A.) SL at Internet http://www.cita.es is already working in gemstones electronic commerce. C.I.T.A. is working in a proposal for the Information Society Technologies, a programme of Research, Technology Development & Demonstration under the 5th Framework Programme expecting publication date 16th March 1999. C.I.T.A. is already coordinating a pan-European consortium in order to transfer new technologies to the gemology and jewellery industry.Some informative messages already sent to the consortium members are published at http://www.cita.es/joyas/proyecto.htm
C.I.T.A. has an agreement for Vietnam gemstones marketing and commerce signed in Hanoi on 14th November 1999 with Vietnam National Gems and Gold Corporation (VIGEGO) published at http://www.cita.es/Vietnam/MOU.htm
C.I.T.A. is also working on gemology expert witnessing for Courts of Law and is concerned with jewellery security in Spain, as explained at http://www.cita.es/joyas/index.htm
C.I.T.A. is very open to technology
transferring from and to Europe. We welcome comments, offers and requests
in order to develop what we would like to promote as NANOGEMOLOGY.
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Miguel Angel Gallardo Ortiz, Mining
Engineer (UPM), Criminologist (UCM) and Expert Witness
Cooperación Internacional en Tecnologías Avanzadas (C.I.T.A.) SL at Internet http://www.cita.es Apartado Postal (P.O. Box) 17083, 28080 Madrid, España (Spain) Tel.: (+34) 91 474 38 09, Modem/Fax: 91 473 81 97, E-mail: iberoeka@lix.intercom.es |