Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 15 (2010) 1575–1582

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Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cnsns

Feynman, biominerals and graphene – Basic aspects of nanoscience

Alexander Quandt a,*, Cem Özdoğan b
a
Institut für Physik der Universität Greifswald, Felix–Hausdorff-Str. 6, 17489 Greifswald, Germany
b
Department of Computer Engineering, Çankaya University, Balgat, 06530 Ankara, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This article is about writing small. Inspired by R.P. Feynman’s legendary talk There’s plenty of
Received 21 April 2009 room at the bottom, we recapitulate his famous Gedanken experiment of condensing a lot of
Received in revised form 3 June 2009 useful information on the head of a pin [see Feynman R, J. MEMS 1 (1992) 60]. These
Accepted 4 June 2009
considerations will familiarize us with the length scales for a future downsizing of techno-
Available online 9 June 2009
logical components, and they allow for some speculations about ultimate physical or
chemical limits of the corresponding nanodevices. Furthermore we will analyze the nano-
PACS:
technological capabilities of Mother Nature in the case of magnetotactic bacteria, and
61.46.Bc
75.75.+a
briefly sketch the cornerstones of the rapidly growing field of biomineralization, which
61.48.De might open up a new science of complex functional nanomaterials in the near future.
Finally we describe a general scheme to shrink integrated microelectronic circuits towards
Keywords: the very size limits of nanotechnology.
Technological forecasting Ó 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Biomagnetism
Nanotechnology
Integrated circuits

1. Introduction

Predictions made on the basis of simple-minded scaling arguments can be rather misleading. In the 1726 edition of
Gulliver’s Travels [2], we learn that the Lilliputian mathematicians, who were smaller than Gulliver by a factor of 12, came
up with a figure of 1728 (=123) food rations for Gulliver’s diet. This number was related to a body mass M being proportional
to its volume, and thus to the third power of a characteristic dimension L. However, the most relevant factor determining a
diet is the metabolic rate Y. According to [3], Y scales as

Y ¼ Y 0 M 3=4  L9=4 ð1Þ

where Y0 is just a normalization constant. This scaling law seems to hold over a mass range of more than 21 orders of
magnitude, from the largest living animals down to microbes, and maybe even further down to larger intracellular mole-
cules, see [3]. And from Eq. (1) we may conclude, that 268 rather than 1728 Lilliputian food rations would already be
sufficient to nourish Gulliver!
In the following Section 2, we will take up a Gulliver’s position and apply various scaling laws to recapitulate a famous
Gedanken experiment of [1], which predicted some of the physical and chemical limits of future (Lilliputian) nanotechnol-
ogies. Then in Section 3, we will have a glimpse at some of the astonishing nanotechnological capabilities of Mother Nature
expressed in magnetotactic bacteria. To this end, we will briefly review the basic physics of ferromagnetism, and convince
ourselves that the structural engineering achieved by these simple microorganisms is really remarkable. Furthermore we

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: alexander.quandt@physik.uni-greifswald.de (A. Quandt), ozdogan@cankaya.edu.tr (C. Özdoğan).

1007-5704/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cnsns.2009.06.009
1576 A. Quandt, C. Özdoğan / Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 15 (2010) 1575–1582

will use the example of bacterial nanomagnetism to sketch some the cornerstones of the rapidly growing field of biominer-
alization, as described in [4].
Finally in Section 4, we will return to man-made nanotechnologies, and discuss some of the limits for further miniatur-
izations of silicon-based microelectronic technologies, due to the optical limitations of photolithography. And we will give a
bold outlook on a general nanotechnological concept of our own making, as described in [5]. It is based on a rather popular
carbon nanomaterial called graphene (see [6]), and might provide a chemical and physical basis for sub-nanometer integra-
tion of electronic circuits.

2. Writing small

The key issue of Feynman’s talk [1] was the following Gedanken experiment, not unintentionally stated in the style of
Newton’s Opticks [7]:
Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin?
In the following, we will carry out a similar Gedanken experiment. Not for the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, but for another
rather heavy textbook of [8] dealing with carbon nanomaterials, which will be a major topic in Section 4. That textbook con-
tains 965 pages of information, printed on an area of 9.21 in.  6.23 in. per page, neglecting margins. This amounts to a total
area of roughly 55,370 in.2 per book. If we assume that the information should be encoded in 300 dpi, the total information
adds up to nearly 4.98  109 dots per book, which have to be encoded on the head of a pin.
Then let us be confident that we can somehow project [8] on the head of a pin, such that the maximum projection area
will be a circle with a diameter of 1/16 in. (see Feynman’s own struggling with such an approach in [1]). In order to simplify
the readout process of the projected information, we might prefer to write it on a square inscribed into this circle, whose
diagonal should be equal to the diameter of the circle. The area of this square will be 1.95  103 in2, on which we finally
have to write our 4.98  109 dots of information, that were originally distributed on 55,370 in.2.
Thus, the projection will imply a downscaling by a factor of 5324, and this corresponds to a net area of 3.92  1013 in.2
per dot. Taking the square root of this result, and switching from in. to m, nm and Å, we estimate the characteristic size of an
average dot to be around 6.26  107 in.  15.9  109 m = 15.9 nm = 159 Å. As we could find a clever way to encode this
information magnetically, it makes sense to compare the characteristic size of such a dot with the Slater radius of iron or
cobalt. Using data from [9], we assume an empirical radius of 1.4 Å for iron and 1.35 Å for cobalt, and the characteristic size
of our dots will be 56 iron atoms, or 58 cobalt atoms. If we would like to rely on a silicon-based technology, the size of a dot
will correspond to 72 silicon atoms with a Slater radius of 1.1 Å. And finally, if we bet on a carbon-based nanotechnology like
in Section 4, then the size of our dots will comprise 113 carbon atoms with a Slater radius of 0.7 Å.
These figures match quite well with those of [1], who estimated that dots with a characteristic size of 80 Å would be
necessary to encode a projection of the whole Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin. Let us now compare ours or
Feynman’s desired degree of miniaturization with current hard disk storage capacities as described in [10]. To this end,
we will content ourselves with a basic graphical representation that stores every dot as either ‘black’ or ‘white’. In such a
case, it will be enough to use one bit (1 bit) of information for every dot.
Conventional hard disks are storing informations inside tiny ferromagnetic domains, which are described in more detail
in Section 3. The following numbers are taken from an article by [10], which contains a detailed description of actual and
future hard disk drive technologies. We start our considerations with a hard disk system based on a very conservative stor-
age technology, which is able to store around 50 Gb/in.2. This is equivalent to 1 bit in 13,000 nm2, corresponding to a char-
acteristic size of about 114 nm for each magnetic bit. The superparamagnetic limit for the breakdown of ferromagnetic
coupling due to thermal fluctuations was assumed to be located around 100 Gb/in.2, which is roughly 1 bit in 6500 nm2,
and corresponds to a characteristic bit size around 81 nm.
Nevertheless, state of the art storage technology is already able to achieve storage densities around 250 Gb/in.2, which is
1 bit in 2600 nm2, corresponding to a characteristic bit size of 51 nm. Such developments were possible due to nanosized
patterning of the storage media, and further developments of read/write head technologies, see [10]. The limits of conven-
tional storage technologies are assumed to lie around 1 Tb/in.2, which is one bit in 645 nm2, with a characteristic bit size of
25 nm.
In order to arrive at a degree of miniaturization that Feynman was aiming for, storage technologies with 10 Tb/in.2 would
be necessary, corresponding to one bit per 65 nm2, and a characteristic bit size around 8 nm. But even those storage capac-
ities do not seem to be out of reach, after developing more precise nanopatterning techniques, see [10].
For the moment being, there is little hope to store information, or to operate miniaturized devices, using a physical sys-
tem smaller than single atoms or cluster aggregates. And therefore atoms and small clusters not only set the physical and
chemical limits of nanotechnology, but they also mark a lower size limit of all current technologies. Nevertheless, we might
already give an answer to the following question: what would be the ultimate size limit for any physical storage of [8], or for
the whole Encyclopedia Britannica? In the former case, our task will be to physically squeeze 4.98  109 bits (or 4.98 Gb) of
data into the smallest possible volume.
The ultimate state of compression for physical matter is a black hole. As pointed out in [11] or in J.A. Wheeler’s classical
paper reprinted in [12], the entropy S of a black hole is simply:
 A. Quandt, C. Özdoğan / Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 15 (2010) 1575–1582 1577

surface area of black hole horizon

S ¼ kB ð2Þ
4  ðPlanck lengthÞ2
As may be expected from a fundamental theory, the major ingredients of Eq. (2) should be elementary functions of the basic
constants c (velocity of light), ⁄ (Planck’s constant), G (gravitational constant) and kB (Boltzmann’s constant), as well as of the
black hole mass M. And indeed, for the surface area of the black hole horizon AS, we find that Ap ¼ 4pR2S , where RS is the
S ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2
famous Schwarzschild radius RS = 2GM/c , see [11]. And for the Planck length lP, we find that lP ¼ G h=c3 . In order to deter-
mine the information I (i.e. the number of bits) for a black hole of mass M, we may use the following relation:

S AS 4pR2 4pGM2
I¼ ¼ 2 ¼ 2 S ¼ ð3Þ
kB ln 2 4lP ln 2 4lP ln 2 hc ln 2

Consequently our 4.98 Gb of data might be squeezed into a black hole with Schwarzschild radius RS = 0.534  1030 m and
mass M = 0.36  103 kg (compare this figure with the estimated mass of a pin, which is M  100 mg = 0.1  103 kg).
Finally we would like to note that, despite some common prejudice, any information stored inside a black hole may not be
lost forever. Instead, any black hole will evaporate, and release its stored information through correlations in the emitted
Hawking radiation, as described in [11]. During the period of time between the creation of a black and its evaporation, which
is a rather short period of time for the black holes described above, [11] suggests that the black hole might nevertheless be
tricked into performing a decent number of computations.

3. Magnetotactic bacteria and biomineralization

Within 15 min walking distance from the current office of the first author lies the river Ryck, which connects the harbor of
the old Hanseatic town of Greifswald with the Baltic sea. The landscape is characterized by ample wetlands along the shore
of the river, and therefore the water is rather muddy. This is the preferred biotope of an aquatic microorganism called
Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense. The latter is a species of magnetotactic bacteria, which are of great scientific interest,
due to their astonishing nanotechnological capabilities to form nanometer sized magnetic crystals, see [13].
Why do these bacteria need to navigate with the help of an internal magnetic compass? They are just one member of a
large and rather heterogeneous group of anaerobic microorganisms, which need a certain minimal concentration of oxygen,
as described in an in-depth review article by [14]. As shown in Fig. 1(a), the oxygen concentration increases vertically
towards the surface of the river. However, navigation by means of gravity is not an option, because the bacteria are just
too light, and navigation by means of sunlight is not an option, because the water is too muddy. Therefore the bacteria need
another external field to navigate, and they obviously make use of the local magnetic field.
On the northern hemisphere, the local magnetic field is somewhat inclined towards the surface of the earth, pointing
downwards. As shown in Fig. 1(a), the direction’north’ is therefore equivalent to ‘down’, whereas ‘south’ is equivalent to
‘up’. Bacteria in search for less oxygen will have to swim down against the oxygen gradient, and thus in a northern direction.
The corresponding internal compass for a magnetotactic bacteria living on the northern hemisphere is indicated in Fig. 1(b).
The compass needle of the bacteria is called magnetosome. It consists of a chain of likely oriented, and rather tiny mag-
netic crystals, which are attached to a cellular filament, as shown in Fig. 1(b). According to [14], the basic crystalline mate-
rials vary among different groups of magnetotactic bacteria, but the most frequent materials in use seem to be magnetite
(Fe3O4) and greigite (Fe3S4). M. gryphiswaldense for example uses magnetite, see [13].

Magnetic field (S-N)

N S
„Water“

O2

Mud

(a) (b)
Fig. 1. Magnetotactic bacteria. (a) Sketch of typical biotope. (b) Internal compass (up) and its realization (down) by ordered magnetic nanocrystals attached
to cytoskeleton strand.
1578 A. Quandt, C. Özdoğan / Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 15 (2010) 1575–1582

From a nanotechnological point of view, the structure of a magnetosome is rather remarkable. According to [14], the usual
magnetic needle is about 1200 nm long, and it comprises about a dozen rather similar magnetic crystallites of 40–120 nm
size. Quite surprisingly, the basic magnetic structure of a typical bacterial crystallite is single-domain. These crystallites do
not contain any proteins, but they are covered by a protein membrane, and attached to the cytoskeleton. This catenation
tends to orient the crystallites and keeps them apart, such that their local magnetic moments will add up, instead of neu-
tralizing each other.
This is probably the most effective way to build a working compass in a bacterial universe. To understand this in more
detail, we have to make some abstractions. A detailed description of the magnetic structure of these crystallites is surpris-
ingly complex, because these crystallites are ferrimagnetic rather than ferromagnetic, and the coupling between the various
spin orientations is mediated by superexchange, see [15]. But for a qualitative picture of the observed phenomena, we may
ignore the minority spins, and assume the validity of an approximate ferromagnetic model for the dominating majority
spins.
Once we study the bulk versions of the bacterial crystallites, we will not detect any net magnetization. The spins are form-
ing magnetic domains, as indicated in Fig. 2(a), and the random orientation of their various net magnetic moments will
neutralize each other. Only after applying a sufficiently strong external magnetic field, we will be able to orient a majority
of these domains. But such a magnetically oriented structure may again be destroyed after heating up the crystals.
Further insight may be gained by setting up a simple model, which is able to simulate the observed phenomena. Here we
follow [16], and examine a 3D system made of scalar Ising spins Si located at various atomic sites i on a given (cubic) lattice,
as indicated in Fig. 2(b). Those Ising spins may be oriented parallel or antiparallel to an external magnetic field H. The total
energy of such a magnetic structure may be described by

1X 1 X Da2 X
Etot ¼  J ij Si Sj  Si Sj cos 2/ij  ðH þ Hi ÞSi ð4Þ
2 i–j 2 i–j r 2ij i

The first term on the right side of Eq. 4 corresponds to the basic ferromagnetic coupling among various atomic sites. We can
slightly simplify this term by assuming that Jij = J > 0 for nearest neighbors, and that J = 0 otherwise. Such an interaction will
obviously tend to align neighboring spins, in order to minimize the total energy.
The second term on the right side of Eq. 4 corresponds to a dipole–dipole interaction, with a coupling constant D > 0. The
factor a denotes the lattice constant of a (cubic) structure model, and /ij denotes the angle between the easy spin axis of the
crystal (which is the preferred orientation of the Ising spins) and a vector rij joining two atomic sites i and j. Thus for two
spins at i and j, which are connected by a vector parallel to the easy axis (i.e. /ij = 0), the dipole–dipole interaction will be
ferromagnetic, whereas for a perpendicular orientation of such a vector (i.e. /ij = p/2), the dipole–dipole interaction will
be antiferromagnetic.
It is the subtle interplay between the first two terms of Eq. (4), which leads to the formation of ferromagnetic domains.
Simply speaking, the short-ranged ferromagnetic coupling tends to align neighboring spins within a given domain, whereas
the long-range dipole–dipole interaction tends to anti-align the total magnetization of neighboring domains. This basic ener-
getic picture will be completed by adding an interaction of the Ising spins with an external magnetic field H, which is the
third term on the right side of Eq. (4). The last ingredient is an additional interaction of Ising spins with a random magnetic
field Hi at each site i, which corresponds to impurities or structural defects. Such defects tend to pin the magnetic domain
walls, and lead to the observed hysteresis effects, see [15].
Numerical simulations of this model system may be carried out by implementing random thermal flips of single spins, as
described by [16]. Those simulations reveal a rather complex physical behavior of such a model system, depending on the
temperature, and on the strength of the various model parameters. And – after watching a sufficient number of such
simulations – one will inevitably come to the conclusion, that the nanoengineering achieved by magnetotactic bacteria is
somewhat remarkable.
Without the help of advanced simulation tools, these simple microorganisms are obviously able to grow optimized
magnetic nanocrystallites: the crystallites will surpass the paramagnetic limit, where ferromagnetic ordering will be
destroyed by thermal excitations. And subsequent growth will aim at assembling the largest possible crystallites, in order

(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Ferromagnetism. (a) Formation of domains may add up to zero total momentum. (b) Ising spins on a lattice and their orientation with respect to an
external magnetic field H.
 A. Quandt, C. Özdoğan / Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 15 (2010) 1575–1582 1579

to achieve a maximum net magnetic moment. Nevertheless the crystallites will remain small enough not to form any multi-
domain structures, which would reduce the net magnetic moment, and be a waste of time and material.
If we were somehow able to copy and multiply on a large scale the basic structure of the corresponding magnetosomes,
we would obtain a recording media that, according to Section 2, will certainly challenge state-of-the-art hard disk technol-
ogies. And although there is already some progress towards the mineralization of viruses, which might allow for a nanostruc-
tured patterning with 7 nm magnetic particles (see [17]), a reverse engineering of Mother Natures mineralization capacities
remains a rather difficult task, and only the most elementary process steps could be copied successfully up to now.
According to [4], the whole process of biomineralization may be divided into four typical stages, and most of them take
place inside a cell. The first stage is called supramolecular preorganization, and it consists of a gathering of the basic cellular
machinery. One typical task is to furnish a suitable reaction environment through the formation of membrane vesicles, and
another typical task is the enabling of ion transport from the environment, by means of suitable ion pumps. The second stage
of biomineralization is called interfacial molecular recognition, and it comprises an active or passive role of the vesicle mem-
branes in lowering basic reaction barriers, and in mimicking suitable nucleation sites for the growth of nanocrystallites.
The third stage is called vectorial growth regulation, and it characterizes the sculpturing of major pieces of biominerals by
the cell. This process involves a virtuosic orchestration of the ion pumps, and the build-up of stress fields through the con-
trolled deformation of vesicles, in order to induce a sequence of growth processes along certain preferred directions. The
fourth and final stage of biomineralization is called cellular processing, and it involves the large–scale assembling of nano-
crystallites, in particular by aligning certain vesicles, and by taking advantage of the transport infrastructure inside and out-
side a cell.
The outcome of these various processes may be admired as bones, teeth or the spectacular exoskeletons of algae or mol-
lusks. Obviously there is no higher intelligence at work, other than the basic cellular machinery. This gives reason to the
assumption, that by seeking a deeper insight into the fundamental physical, chemical and biological principles of biominer-
alization, Nature itself might lead us to an entirely new science of customized hierarchical and nanostructured materials.

4. Ultimate electronic devices

The unique success story of modern microelectronics is characterized by a constant push towards miniaturization. A key
invention has been Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI), as described by its invertors in [18]. With the help of photolitho-
graphic techniques, the wiring and the basic devices that make up integrated circuits are impressed on a silicon substrate
in a layer by layer fashion. There are at least two problems that impede the miniaturization of microelectronic circuits below
40 nm feature size. First of all, there are limits for the lateral optical resolution Dx of photolithography, as quantified by the
Rayleigh formula
Dx ¼ jk=NA ð5Þ
Here k is the wavelength of the light source, which should be as small as possible. And NA is the numerical aperture of the
optical system (see [19]), which should be as large as possible, for example by immersing lenses into a liquid. Note that j is a
process factor depending on the optical system in use. For simple projections, j has a physical limit of 0.25, due to diffrac-
tion. Various methods of optimizing Dx, like double patterning or high index immersion, are described in [20] and [21]. For
example, given a 193 nm source and an NA of 1.55, we may obtain feature sizes around Dx = 31 nm.
The second problem that limits miniaturization is doping, as pointed out in [22]. Even with shrinking systems sizes, the
source and the drain of the transistor should remain well separated, and therefore bulk doping has to be increased. But in
order to avoid junction breakdown due to excessive doping, the device has to be run with lower operating voltage. To this
end the gate oxide layer has to be made rather thin, which increases the likelihood of electron tunneling.
One way out of this dilemma would be a switch-over to another substrate. Preferably to one which is easy to produce, and
which does not even require any doping. One such replacement material could be graphene, a label which denotes a whole
family of novel carbon nanostructures, based on single layers of graphite. The basic structure of these carbon monolayers is
the honeycomb lattice shown in Fig. 3(a), where the carbon atoms are occupying the corners of the hexagons. According to a
procedure described in [6], larger fragments of such carbon monolayers may be produced in a rather elementary fashion,
which mainly requires a small chunk of graphite, adhesive tape, a clean working environment. And some patience in thin-
ning out graphite, using adhesive tape to peel off graphene layers.
It turns out that the electronic properties of the resulting carbon flakes are strongly influenced by edge effects, as
described in [23]. The easiest way to study these effects is by means of a tight binding model described in [24]. The corre-
sponding band structure calculations, f.e. as carried out by ourselves in [5], predict a metallic behavior for an infinite two-
dimensional graphene monolayer.
The most suitable chemical systems to study edge effects are graphene nanoribbons, which are broad carbon bands cut
out of a graphene monolayer, and they are assumed to be infinite (and periodic) in one direction. Here the tight binding mod-
el predicts all graphene nanoribbons with zigzag borders (i.e. infinite repetitions of the horizontal borders shown in Fig. 3(a))
to be metallic. On the other hand, all graphene nanoribbons with armchair border (i.e. infinite repetitions of the vertical
borders shown in Fig. 3(a)) should either be semiconducting or metallic, depending on their width. Those tight binding
predictions are in good agreement with more accurate ab initio results, as described in [5].
1580 A. Quandt, C. Özdoğan / Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 15 (2010) 1575–1582

Fig. 3. Graphene. (a) Honeycomb lattice of graphene monolayer. (b) B7-cluster embedded into semiconducting graphene nanoribbon, forming alternating
chains along the periodic y-direction (up). This embedding leads to a metallization of the compound system (down).

For nanoelectronic purposes, one may be confident that someone will figure out a way to produce semiconducting flakes
of graphene on a large scale. If necessary, just by manipulating the borders of metallic flakes. In contrast to silicon wafers,
larger flakes of semiconducting graphene will not require any doping, which provides us with an ideal substrate for the min-
iaturization of microelectronic circuitry below the size ranges provided by silicon, and surpassing the limits set by the ad-
vanced lithographic techniques described in [21].
An important step forward towards the development of an integrated nanopatterning approach for graphene should be
the identification of a second chemical element, with a largely compatible chemistry. It turns out that, apart from the dis-
covery of a whole new chemistry of carbon nanomaterials during the last decades (see [8]), a similar development took place
in the field of boron chemistry, which is the immediate neighbor of carbon in the periodic table. A survey of these novel types
of boron nanomaterials is given in [25], and one the central building blocks of boron nanomaterials is the pyramidal B7-clus-
ter shown in Fig. 3(b).
The basic compatibility of boron and carbon nanomaterials was first demonstrated by [26] in the case of nanotubular het-
erojunctions, and it can be understood on the basis of elemental chemistry. According to [27], boron is an electron deficient
element, which has less valence electrons (i.e. 3) than stable orbitals (i.e. 4) in the outer shell. One of the most spectacular
properties of electron deficient elements is their possibility to increase their valency up to a value greater than the orbital
number. In other words: those elements seem to enforce chemical bonding, no matter what. Furthermore, in the case of the
boron–carbon system, structural adjustments do not have to take place over a large range of interatomic distances and bond
angles, because the Slater radius of boron with 0.85 Å is rather close to the carbon radius with 0.7 Å. Furthermore the B7-pyr-
amids are structurally compatible with the honeycomb structure of graphene, as shown in Fig. 3(b).
This is an ideal chemical situation for any sub-nanometer sized patterning of graphene. Therefore we set up a series of
model systems in [5] to study the basic physical and chemical behavior of such a patterning, and one of the results is repro-

semiconducting graphene nanoribbon

Fig. 4. Graphene transistor: basic layout for a nanotransistor, which is integrated into a semiconducting graphene nanoribbon, using a wiring made of
‘dotted’ lines, where each dot corresponds to a boron cluster.
 A. Quandt, C. Özdoğan / Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 15 (2010) 1575–1582 1581

duced in Fig. 3(b). Note that we had some good chemical reasons not to simulate massive doping of graphene by boron
atoms, apart from the general technological problems already known for silicon-based technologies described in [22].
In order to achieve a stable patterning, we would rather embed B7-clusters into a semiconducting armchair nanoribbon,
which was periodic in the y direction shown in Fig. 3(b). It is quite obvious that for such a model system, the boron clusters
were not directly connected. Which to some extend simulates an initial speckle pattern generated by primitive cluster
implantation methods, as suggested in [28]. It can be seen from the band structure in Fig. 3(b), that the embedding of dis-
connected boron clusters will nevertheless lead to a metallization of the graphene substrate, due to band crossings around
the Fermi level located at 0 eV.
We are still examining, how far this metallization extends into the semiconducting substrate. But if this metallization
turns out to be a phenomenon, which is mainly localized on the infinite ‘dotted’ cluster lines running along the y-direction
in Fig. 4, sub-nanometer sized transistors like the one shown in Fig. 4 could one day be engraved into graphene, using a prac-
tical and robust patterning method on the basis of embedded boron clusters.

5. Conclusions

We have analyzed various situations of writing small, starting from a Gedanken experiment inspired by Feynman’s leg-
endary talk documented in [1]. To this end, we employed some simple scaling arguments to show that there will be plenty of
room at the bottom, for conventional devices based on silicon or various transition metals, as well as for novel types of devices
based on carbon. Finally we compared some of the basic design data for such technologies to the ultimate physical limits of
information storage and processing related to black holes. If feasible, there might be even more room below the bottom.
In order to familiarize ourselves with working nanotechnologies, we then described the astonishing capabilities of simple
bacteria in creating optimized nanometer sized magnetosomes. After refreshing our knowledge about ferromagnetism, a
comparison between state-of-the-art magnetic storage devices and the magnetic needles of magnetotactic bacteria would
reveal a stunning and rather subtle type of magnetic engineering achieved by those simple microorganisms. We also showed
that this is but one of many examples from Nature’s amazing toolbox available for the creation of functional nanomaterials,
referred to as biomineralization. Therefore it might not come as a big surprise, if future breakthroughs in nanoengineering
will largely be stimulated by this new area of materials science.
Finally we gave a brief description of a general layout scheme for nanometer sized analogs of basic microelectronic
circuits. This novel technological approach is based on carbon and boron nanomaterials, rather than conventional semicon-
ducting materials. And although there are still considerable practical problems to be solved, our simulations nevertheless
suggest a rather robust approach to the controlled nanopatterning of semiconducting graphene substrates, based on the
embedding of small boron clusters. Note that such layout concepts are well within the realm of existing technologies,
and therefore they badly need further exploration, in contrast to the wondrous, but still rather popular visions and night-
mares from the early days of nanotechnology.
In summary, we hope that our selection of topics was suitable for pointing out the large variety of crosslinks between
physics, chemistry and biology, which is the hallmark of modern nanoscience. And we also hope that we could address at
least one of those fields of nanoscience, from which will emanate the major technological ideas and innovations of the
coming decades.

Acknowledgement

A.Q. and C.Ö. would like to thank Dr. Jens Kunstmann (TU Dresden) for his kind support regarding extensive ab initio sim-
ulations of graphene nanostructures. A.Q. also would like to thank the CNR-IFN Trento for their hospitality and support dur-
ing a sabbatical leave in 2007/2008.

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