MadSci Network: Computer Science
Query:

Re: Can atoms be moved through a solid conductor and be routed?

Date: Wed Sep 22 13:13:55 1999
Posted By: Judith E. Bush, Staff, Educational Technology Programs, Franklin Institute Science Museum
Area of science: Computer Science
ID: 937537688.Cs
Message:

The answer to your question is another question -- how do you define conductor? Sub-molecular and molecular transport using lattice-like structures -- which could be interpreted as conductors -- is an area of active research.

One method of transport is using nanotubes, the cylindrical relative of buckyballs, also known as fullerenes. While i haven't run across any citations about the construct of tubes transporting atoms, some research has been in using nanotubes to make electron conductors and semi-conductors.

Other methods for atomic and molecular transport are less recognizable as classical conductors. Atomic transport has been achieved through hollow optical fiber. Polymers that can be easily assembled and disassembled around molecular contents are also under investigation.

Your reference to "solid molecules" also changes the answer, depending on how it's interpreted. I can easily expect the development of mechanisms to assemble simple molecules in a 'replicator' like fashion in the near future, using similar transport mechanisms. If you become even more loose in how you interpret "conductor," current biophysics research in assembling proteins and other large organic molecules reinforces the likelihood.

But solid describes the state of a statistically large collection of items, and I suspect you're speaking more of transmitting a particular coffee cup instead of a assembling a large number of caffeine molecules into a crystal. That remains far more speculative, and the actual transport of the atoms remains far less problematic than the structuring and restructuring. No transporters in the foreseeable future.


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