Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-unix!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!NOTE.NSF.GOV!fbaube From: fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Nanotech applications Message-ID: <8712041156.aa22561@note.nsf.gov> Date: Fri, 4-Dec-87 13:10:52 EST Article-I.D.: note.8712041156.aa22561 Posted: Fri Dec 4 13:10:52 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 9-Dec-87 06:18:48 EST Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 18 People have been casting about for nanotech applications. The current EE Times says that most of the new superconductors are materials that are a jumble of crystalline structures, and that the superconducting may be occurring along the inter-crystal faults. This would explain their fragility and the difficulty of reproducing results. If this *is* the mechanism, a nanotech engineer would devise/design/program a "constructor" to build atoms into crystals up to a certain size, and then piece together these tiny crystals into a macro structure where they are not at an orientation where they can further coalesce into a larger crystal, but rather, where intercrystal faults are created in accordance with design parameters. I apologize for imprecisions in the use of terminology.