New program also seeks to develop revolutionary
miniaturization and assembly methods that would work at scales 100,000 times
smaller than current state-of-the-art technology
Many common materials exhibit different and potentially
useful characteristics when fabricated at extremely small scales—that is, at
dimensions near the size of atoms, or a few ten-billionths of a meter. These
“atomic scale” or “nanoscale” properties include quantized electrical
characteristics, glueless adhesion, rapid temperature changes, and tunable
light absorption and scattering that, if available in human-scale products and
systems, could offer potentially revolutionary defense and commercial
capabilities