Unlocking the Secrets of Nanoparticles and Iron Man Technology: A Closer Look

Nanoparticles and Iron Man Technology

Science is the driving force behind the best film industry of this century, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nanotechnology is a driving force in the film industry. This can be found in the weapon technology of Tony Stark or known as Iron Man in the movie Avengers: Infinity War.

Mark suit, Tony Stark’s advanced armor continues to evolve as the Iron Man story unfolds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At first, the Mark suit could only be worn from the bottom, making it less practical. Then, Tony packed it in a suitcase, and then developed it so that it could be summoned remotely. For the latest version of the film Avengers: Infinity War, the Mark suit can cover Tony immediately by tapping the reactor in his chest.

The development of the Mark suit reflects real-world technology trends: increasingly small and portable. For example, the ENIAC computer that took up one room became a PC that could be placed on a table, then a laptop that could be carried anywhere, and now a super mini smartphone. This development occurred as a result of a reduction in the size of transistors, one of the main components of computers.

Moore’s law, the prediction of Gordon Moore, the founder of INTEL about reducing the size of transistors, has been proven correct. The size of transistors in chips continues to decrease, doubling every year. Currently, the smallest manufactured chips reach 3nm, close to the size of human DNA. This chip can be found on the Apple A17 Bionic. This is a form of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology leads to the engineering and production of materials on an atomic scale, that is 1-100nm (Farokhzad and Langer, 2009). On this scale, materials have properties that differ from their normal properties due to quantum effects. By experimenting at this level, it is believed that something previously unimaginable can be created. Atoms on this scale can be designed to have specific functions. Matter can be manipulated to have properties and behave according to desired goals at this scale. The material manipulated in nanotechnology is called nanoparticles.

Self-Assembly as a Property of Nanoparticles in Iron Man Weapon Technology

Nanoparticles are particles that have special properties due to their size. Self-assembly is one of the unique properties of nanoparticles. Self-assembly is the ability of nanoparticles to control their structure and properties by relying on the control of interactions between electronic, magnetic and optical properties. This character was the inspiration for Tony Stark’s armor to become Iron Man.

Tony only needs to tap the reactor in his chest, where the reactor becomes a reservoir for the nanoparticles that make up his Mark suit. The signal suit can accumulate due to the self-assembly ability of the nanoparticles in Tony’s reactor.

The self-assembly properties of nanoparticles themselves are often used as observational material in conducting experiments. One of them was an experiment done by Dr. Paul Cherukuri and his team at Rice University on the self-assembly of carbon nanotubes (CNT). Reporting from Rice University News and Media Relations, the phenomenon that occurred in this experiment is called Teslaphoresis. This phenomenon is observed when CNTs change their structure to become cables when subjected to a field from a Tesla coil.