Scientific research in the last century has revealed facets that have fundamentally changed our understanding of nanoscale materials. With the help of NT, material properties can be tweaked to make them durable and stronger, have better electrical & thermal conductivity, microbacterial resistance etc. NT has ushered revolutionary changes in the military domain. Potential applications of the cutting-edge developments of nanotechnology in defence include extremely small computers, robots, missiles, satellites, launchers and sensors.
By Lt Gen (R) Kapil Agarwal
a 5 mins read.
What is Nano
The word ‘Nano’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Nanos,’ which implies something extremely small. To get a perspective, one centimeter = 1/100 of a meter while one nanometer (nm) = one billionth of a meter (10 to the power minus 9, i.e nano). All nanoscale structures typically have a dimensional range or length between 1 and 100 nanometers.
To better visualize the nanoscale size, let’s look at some of the examples. If human skin is observed under a magnifying glass, it reaches the millimeter dimension, ie 1/1000 of a meter. However, if a microscope is used to study the skin, it is at a micrometer scale (1/1000 of a millimeter), which allows examination of the skin cells. Typically, cells, bacteria, and silicon chips are measured in micrometers.
A nanometer scale is even smaller and primarily used to measure atoms and molecules. An atom that makes up all matter around us has a width in the range of 0.1 to 0.5 nm; a human hair is 50k nm to 100k nm in thickness, a single DNA strand is 2.5 nm wide, and a sheet of paper is 75k nm thick. This tiny dimensional space represents the nanoscale world.
Nano Technology
Nano Technology (NT) refers to the field of science that manipulates matter on a near-atomic scale to design new structures, materials, and devices that thrive at nanoscale dimensions. This technology has become crucial for the progress and evolution of several scientific disciplines, including material science, medicine, manufacturing, engineering with vast applications in defence.
Scientific research in the last century has revealed facets that have fundamentally changed our understanding of nanoscale materials. According to Scientists, materials with at least one parameter, ie length, breadth, or height in the 1 to 100 nm range, tend to reveal distinct physical and chemical properties compared to the same materials at the macroscale (dimensions bigger than nanometre) capacity.
With the help of NT, material properties can be tweaked to make them durable and stronger, have better electrical & thermal conductivity, microbacterial resistance etc.
Any material when broken down into smaller pieces still exhibits the same basic physical properties such as density, texture, boiling point, thermal conductivity, etc. However, these properties of the same material change at the nanoscale level based on its exact size. It is observed that the properties exhibited by materials at the nanoscale are not manifested by the same material at any other length. For example, Gold expresses different colors at different nanoscale dimensions. It is orange in color at 100 nm and green at 50 nm. The gold particles show distinct catalytic properties that vary according to material size only at lengths below 5 nm.
Applications of Nano Technology
With the help of NT, material properties can be tweaked to make them durable and stronger, have better electrical & thermal conductivity, microbacterial resistance etc. Nanomaterials are being used across day-to-day applications, from fabrics, cosmetics, food processing, drug delivery, and sportswear, to camera displays and eyewear, lithium-ion batteries with applications in EVs, electronics, energy domain etc.
NT is extensively being used in the design of small transistors used in electronic chips. Electronic circuits are getting smaller and smaller and IBM has already announced the fabrication of 2 nm chips with superlative performance. With the proliferation of high-performance computing devices, 5G, AI, and IoT devices, NT applications have grown exponentially. According to an October 2022 report by MarketWatch, the global NT market reached a valuation of $1.97 billion in 2021 and is estimated to climb to $34.3 billion by the end of 2030.
Revolutionary Changes
NT has ushered revolutionary changes in the military domain. Potential applications of the cutting-edge developments of nanotechnology in defence include extremely small computers, robots, missiles, satellites, launchers and sensors. They may also provide lighter and stronger materials for vehicles and weapons, implants in soldiers’ bodies, metal-free firearms, autonomous fighting systems, and smaller chemical and biological weapons. Advances in NT are being gainfully utilized in R & D of protection armour, stealth/invisibility ware, lighter and stronger craft/ships/vehicles manufacturing, radar undetected aircraft and submarines through electromagnetic camouflage. Some of the important developments are being briefly enumerated now.
Lighter Military Platforms: Military platforms, presently, are heavy and mostly based on high-density steel due to which they suffer from high fuel consumption and low maneuverability. The armour in such platforms for protection from ballistic and blast attacks is also made out of high-density materials. Low-density metal alloys and composites are being developed based on NT which partially or fully replace high-density steel in many of the naval, ground, and aerospace-based military platforms. Nanomaterials such as CNTs, graphene and composite metals will reduce the weight penalty in military platforms and their armour.
UAVs: Advancements in UAVs in terms of their smaller profiles, endurance and surveillance capability will be heavily dependent on advances in NT. Their enhanced survivability due to increased material robustness will be facilitated by NT. Upgraded sensing systems, both in terms of range and sensitivity as well as the potential for novel power generation and storage techniques will also be led by breakthroughs in the field of NT. Data processing by onboard processors of UAVs will also be many magnitudes faster due to NT, enabling enhanced levels of autonomous operation.
Sensors: Sensors are an integral part of any instrumentation, surveillance gadget, antennas etc, used in all military platforms. There is always a need for smart, miniaturized, extremely sensitive, selective, and accurate sensors. Novel materials with exotic properties based on NT, attributable to their nano sizes, are revolutionizing the field of sensors. Examples include Polymer-based nanocomposites and carbon (Graphene, CNT etc).
Stealth and Camouflage NT: The advent of nanotechnology and nanomaterials demonstrates great potential to mitigate the gaps in camouflage/stealth applications through the effective use of specific electromagnetic windows in the EM spectrum. These materials can be used in the form of surface coatings of structural components of the target to blend them with the surroundings. Thus, the acquisition of signatures using multispectral detectors of combat military targets, as well as soldiers by the enemy is rendered difficult.
Smart Soldier: A modern soldier is not only equipped with weapons, ammunition and survival rations but also wears communication, surveillance, night vision and computing devices, consequently increasing the carried load significantly. Thus, while turning a soldier into a “Smart Soldier”, there is a concurrent need to reduce the payload carried so as not to compromise mobility. Efforts are ongoing to reduce the carried weight by designing lightweight weapons, ammunition, body armour, surveillance, and communication systems together with replacing batteries with energy harvesting systems from renewable sources, such as solar energy, kinetic, and thermal energy produced by the human body. Nanomaterials and nanotechnologies appear to be highly promising in this regard.
High Energy Explosives and Propellants: Nanometals such as Nano-Al and Nano-B clusters have emerged as powerful explosive ingredients, whereas Nanothermites have been found to be very effective and safe nanoenergy materials (nEMs) for explosives and propellants. Furthermore, polymer-bonded Nano explosives are being tried for their safe handling including storage and transportation.
CBRN Defence: Militaries all over the world want the threat from weapons of mass destruction to be neutralized or at least managed effectively. NT is fast emerging as a critical tool to manage such threats efficiently. The underlying principle is that the reduced size of nanomaterials leads to enhanced high chemical reactivity to decompose many chemical weapon agents, adsorption of biological weapon agents, and decontamination of radiological hazards as well. Further, the quantum confinement, leading to energy-efficient fluorescent semiconducting nanostructures, enables the detection of many of these CBRN agents even in trace amounts.
A combination of NT and Biotechnologies is expected to generate a new class of nano and bioweapons hitting human targets even indoors without their presence being noticed by the enemy.
Confluence of NT
NT along with Information Technology and Biotechnology, are believed to be the technologies of the twenty-first century that will have a major impact in any major war in the future. The combination of IT and NT in the form of Artificial Intelligence may lead to the replacement of human beings with unmanned intelligent robotic systems performing duties in highly hazardous environments in areas affected by the use of weapons of mass destruction. The NT-enabled quantum communication systems may lead to highly secure unbreakable information sharing between friendly forces.
Furthermore, a combination of NT and Biotechnologies is expected to generate a new class of nano and bioweapons hitting human targets even indoors without their presence being noticed by the enemy. Such weapons may even prove to be the weapons of mass extinction. NT on the other hand may also provide protective measures against such weaponries. Thus, NT is fast emerging as an all-weather tool in both offensive and defensive domains of futuristic warfare.
(Lt Gen (R) Kapil Agarwal, former Director General EME. He is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, having done MTech (Electronics). The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The News Analytics Journal.)
