It is impossible to talk about nanotechnology and not imagine yourself in a science fiction movie. In one where everything becomes incredibly small, something like 100,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper. But make no mistake about it, its benefits are gigantic, offering solutions to health, energy, environment, economy and technology problems, among others.
Let's imagine buildings that recycle air; humans with artificial polymer muscles that replace body parts; pocket computers with overhead storage; or small metallic particles capable of accurately diagnosing and treating pathologies such as Alzheimer's and cancer. It is not fantasy, but rather the bet of nanotechnology, a science that includes the study, design, creation, synthesis and application of materials at the nanoscale, which when manipulated as molecules and atoms present totally new phenomena and properties.
In this sense, the properties of materials such as gold, iron or carbon not only depend on what they are, but also depend on their structures and how they are arranged. For example, until before nanotechnology carbon was known as a dark and fragile element that could basically be used for combustion, however, by analyzing its minimal structure we can modify the order of the atoms to obtain graphene, a transparent material. flexible and capable of conducting electricity.
“When materials have nanometric dimensions, where 1 nanometer is one millionth of a meter, their properties change substantially. They change color, electrical insulators become conductive, magnetic materials stop being so, opaque ones become transparent ”, says Juan Escrig Murúa, Director of the Nanomagnetism Laboratory at the University of Santiago de Chile.
Although nanotechnology is a relatively new area of science, it is growing by leaps and bounds thanks to the development of technological equipment that allows obtaining and characterizing nanomaterials that will be part of developments of "super" implements in areas such as energy efficiency, electronic devices, optimization clothing industry and will undoubtedly play a critical role in future medicine and healthcare.
"Until now, most of the efforts of nanotechnology have focused on biomedicine with the aim of offering new and better tools for the diagnosis of diseases, treatments or therapies" complements Marcelo Kogan, doctor in chemistry and professor at the Faculty of Chemistry from the University of Chile.
