Nanotechnology: Small-Scale Engineering Leads to Oversized Opportunities

By Travis Earles, Lockheed Martin Senior Manager, Advanced Material and Nanotechnology Initiatives

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.”
-Carl Sagan, famed astronomer, astrophysicist and cosmologist

Imagine a world where we have the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. A world where novel materials enable entirely new approaches to design and production that is faster and better than ever before.

The nanotechnology exhibits at the upcoming USA Science & Engineering Festival will provide a compelling peek into this world of small-scale engineering for oversized opportunities. The exhibits demonstrate how advanced manufacturing capabilities are linked hand-in-hand with advanced materials, and are completely changing how we make everything. You will get a glimpse into the materials-based revolution that is opening the door to vast opportunities we have only begun to imagine.

Far more than mere engineering at ever smaller dimensions, our expanding abilities to observe and manipulate matter at the nanoscale enable us to leverage the unique physical, chemical, mechanical and optical properties of materials that occur at that scale to produce superior, multifunctional applications that are key discriminators for our technology platforms —in air, on land, at sea and in space.

These advanced materials initiatives, combined with our advanced manufacturing initiatives, form the foundations for innovative, affordable solutions, systems and products that we are already realizing —not only in aerospace and defense but in security, renewable energy, sustainable manufacturing, healthcare, robotics and computing. I hope you will join me and many of my Lockheed Martin colleagues at the USA Science & Engineering Festival to explore the amazing world of nanotechnology.

Continue the conversation with Travis via Twitter @TMEarles.