Nano-letters

Advances in nanotechnology might have major impacts on librarianship in the next few years. PC World explores new techniques for creating nano-images with a highly photo-sensitive polymer and some high-tech equipment. Check out the photo gallery at: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/07/gallery_nano_letters

In a still, dark environment, the liquid polymer is blasted by intense and accurate UV light. The light causes exposed polymer to harden, but unexposed polymer remains liquid to be washed away. Almost any shape can be made with the highly sensitive light. Right now scientists are making billions of microscopic letters, numbers and symbols in a small sheet of plastic. The article mentions key elements for creating the nano-letters, but doesn’t provide much detail as to what purpose those letters serve.

Could these microscopic letters be the beginning of the next, most successful e-book? Since scientists can control the formations of the exposed polymer, they could potentially create microscopic books. Billions of letters could be exposed at a time, creating microscopic pages. All that an e-book would need to be readable is a light source and a magnifying lens. Maybe the idea of microscopic letters behind a lens isn’t the most space or cost-effective way to build an e-book, but microscopic letters may become a part of storing the vast amount of information the human race has accumulated.

Preservation and security are issues every librarian must face. Particular records from government agencies must be kept for 10 years. With the number of government agencies and other public service organizations out there, the records must take a huge amount of space. Nanotechnology that creates letters by the billions could be a way to securely store huge volumes of information in an incredibly small space. If I can fit over a billion letters on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper, then I could probably fit over a million “sheets” of paper into one nano-page. The potential to save records in hard polymer could increase their longevity—the polymer is less likely to erode than environmentally-susceptible paper.

The technology to produce nano-letters just got quite a bit cheaper and more efficient, but it is still pretty unreasonable to expect a mass-market price range at this point. Still, the advance of photo-sensitive nano-equipment creates a new way of thinking about creating and storing information.