The proposed compact Nanofactory is a molecular manufacturing system, possibly small enough to sit on a desktop, that could build a diverse selection of large-scale molecularly precise diamond products. The Nanofactory is potentially a high quality, extremely low cost, and very flexible manufacturing system.
The main input to the diamond feedstock Nanofactory is simple hydrocarbon molecules such as natural gas, propane, or acetylene. Small supplemental amounts of a few other simple molecules containing atoms of chemical trace elements such as oxygen, nitrogen or silicon may also be required.
The Nanofactory must be provided with electrical power and a means for cooling the working unit.
The main output of the first commercial will be Nanofactory Macroscale Quantities of molecularly precise diamond products. These products may include nanocomputers, medical nanorobots, products having diverse aerospace and defense applications, devices for cheap energy production and environmental remediation, and a cornucopia of new and improved consumer products. Earlier-generation research nanofactories will produce substantially less complex products but Will Provide an evolutionary pathway leading from the first simple DMS commercial workstations to more mature systems.
The Nanofactory is a molecular manufacturing system employing controlled molecular assembly that will make possible the creation of fundamentally novel products having the intricate complexity currently found only in biological systems, but operating with greater speed, power, reliability, and, most importantly, entirely under human control. Molecular manufacturing has the potential to be extremely clean, efficient, and inexpensive.
Our Nanofactory diamond will be constructed from components of the same sort that it can manufacture itself. While molecular manufacturing systems made from DNA, other biopolymers, or even biological organisms are possible, such systems would be unable to build products that approach the remarkable strength, stiffness, temperature range, lightness, electrical, optical and other properties that can Achieved with diamond materials.
The long-term goal of the Nanofactory Collaboration is to design, and Ultimately to build, a working diamond Nanofactory.
"The killer app for digital fabrication is personal fabrication - things you can not buy at Walmart. What if, instead of sending energy, computation, and so on. around the world, we sent the means to create it? As regular objects become computerized and interconnected at a smaller and smaller scale, we're approaching the nano-scale of biological systems. We're on the cusp of a fabrication revolution. "
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