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U.S. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Written and Oral testimony submitted by Dr. Cynthia Kuper
June 5, 2001


Mr. Chairman, I greatly appreciate being given the opportunity to speak with you today regarding the present status and future direction of nanotechnology. If I were asked to testify before you just a few years ago I would have used words like imagine and potential. Today I come before you with the words of we will and we can. I am here to tell you where nanotechnology is and where it is going.

Nanotechnology is the technology of science on the nano scale, the size scale of atoms and molecules, one billionth of one meter. It is the most powerful form of engineering we know of and thus, brings with it the most innovative and revolutionary materials that exist in the universe.

Nanotechnology holds the key to our future, a future that began over the last decade in university laboratories, across our country and the world, where scientists embarked on studies of a new form of carbon that is 100 time stronger than steel and weighs 1/6 as much, wires made out single molecules and pathways to engineer devices half the size of the diameter of a human hair. The future of these findings will lead to computers the size of credit cards, vehicles for land and air that self-heal and think, and multi-functional materials such as a jacket worn by a soldier that weighs as much as a cotton shirt, yet is a ballistic shield, portable power supply, and a medicine cabinet of anti-biological warfare agents, holding the vaccines in tiny capsules ready to release them when its sensors detect their presence in the air. In this future we will use carbon nanotubes to deliver drugs to infected cells and the bacteria that infects cells to build computers.

I am fortunate to have worked with these materials first hand and am humbled to say that I am one of the few that has been trained by some of the world leaders in this field. I began my scientific endeavors in the laboratory at the age of 15, working on cures for breast cancer. I obtained my doctorate in Chemistry and never dreamed I would be on such an adventure as this one. Having the opportunity to work with Noble laureates and our space agency to develop these materials, to have a glimpse into our future.

Nanotechnology will build a new class of air and spacecraft using materials with the highest strength to weight ratio ever seen before. These materials are called carbon nanotubes. To visualize a carbon nanotube, visualize a sheet of chicken wire and place a carbon atom in every vertice in the chicken wire. Then roll up the sheet so that is closes upon it self at the edges seamlessly. You have just formed a long tube made solely of carbon atoms. Now, if you will, envision a soccer ball. Place a carbon atom in every vertice on the stitching of the soccer ball. This is a carbon 60 molecule, or "Bucky" ball. Take this soccer ball and cut it in half. Use each half to cap the ends of the long tube. This is a single-wall carbon nanotube. Its diameter is one billionth of meter and its length is a micron, one millionth of one meter. These are single molecules and they are with out defect. Their unique structure gives them strengths 100 times greater than steel and weight 1/6 of steel, 1/2 as much as carbon fibers used today. High strength and low weight is just the beginning of the remarkable properties of these materials. They also conduct electricity along their bodies equal to copper, but loose no heat as the electricity travel from one end of the tube to the other. Perpendicular to their long tiny bodies they insulate like a diamond. Carbon nanotubes have extremely high thermal conductivities as well and are unreactive in most environments. Each desired physical property is obtained simply by rotating the molecule from 0 to 90 degrees. With carbon nanotubes we can build maritime vehicles that evade corrosion and detection by the enemy. We can build airplanes with warping wings that respond automatically to environmental conditions and that are lighter and more fuel-efficient. We can build computer circuits orders of magnitude smaller than today's standards. We can build our future, a future that looks as perfect as the nature that surrounds us. A future in which soldiers lives are not compromised and we can attack each threat individually in the theater.

I look towards the government for strategic investment in nanotechnology similar to its investments during the 1950's, which led to micro technology, micro fabrication and computer technology. This was our past. It has been fruitful and formidable, but it has run its course. Technology of the past cannot answer our needs for today and the future. We need lighter more fuel-efficient vehicles. We need better forms of power storage. We need orders of magnitude increase in data storage capabilities. We need our soldiers better protected on the battlefield.

The future is today. The question is no longer how. The question is when. We must take nanotechnology out of the laboratories and into the market. We must start fabrication, not only characterization. We must build.

Once it was thought that our largest barrier to the technology of the future was the technology itself, not having microscopes powerful enough to see individual atoms and molecules, not understanding the physics and chemistry at this size scale. The scientific community has overcome these obstacles and surpassed them. Today with out question the largest barrier to taking the next step is an economic one. The materials of nanotechnology are ready to be fabricated into useful forms so that the military and society can realize their extreme benefits. We are ready to break away from basic science and become an applied industry. This is evidenced by the number of new nanotechnology start up companies growing everyday.

Now I will use word like potential. These small businesses have the potential to supply the military with its materiel demands needed build the next generation of defense products. These businesses need an infrastructure to survive. They need investment and goals. The defense community will greatly benefit by getting involved in strong partnerships with the private sector in nanotechnology now so that it may direct its course through the future to suit the need of department of defense. Department of defense appropriations can bring speed to market more quickly so that the military can reap benefits that much faster. Everyday that we wait the military is denied its future.