Christian Binek, professor of physics and astronomy, will present “The Rise of Nanotechnology: Small Machines with Big Impact” at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 28 in the Nebraska Union Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Binek is the interim director of the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience and the director of the Nebraska Nanoscale Facility. His talk will introduce nanotechnology, present examples of state-of-the-art nanostructures, and outline current applications — such as the internet of things — along with future developments.
“All physical properties of matter are determined by the underlying atomic structure, which now can be manipulated almost at will, limited only by our imagination and the constraints determined by the fundamental laws of quantum physics,” Binek said. “In all areas affected by nanotechnology, radical transformations take place beyond our linear intuition.”
The lecture is the fourth in the ongoing “The Rise of the Machines” series, which opened in September 2019 with a discussion of British novels and continued with discussions on drones and genetics. The series was developed for the College of Arts and Sciences’ Inquire program, which serves a starting point for discussions between the program’s students and their peers, staff and faculty.
