1. Salute to the British Kingdom for establishing Cotton College in 1901 in the North-East of India:

The British East India Company under the leadership of Robert Clive captured Bengal in 1757 by defeating the Nawab of Murshidabad, Siraj Ud Daulah in the battle of Palase. Since then the center of Indian culture and trade were shifted from Delhi to Calcutta. The British troops captured Kolkata and named it the Capital of British India in 1772, although the capital shifted to the hilly town of Shimla during the summer months every year. The most glorious part of Bengal was the rule of British period. Calcutta, the Capital of British India was established by fastening the three villages namely Kalikata, Sutanuti and Gobindapur in the year of 1797-1805, the period was largely responsible for the growth of the city and its public artistry which led to the description of Kolkata as “The City of Palaces”. It was British who first established the infrastructure project like railroads and Telegraph system for communication and Institute for education only in very limited places. One such Institute was in Guwahati of Assam. Henry John Stedman Cotton, the then Chief Commissioner of erstwhile British Province of Assam, along with few person like sir Manick Chandra Barua established a college at Guwahati, an extreme corner of North-East India in the year 1901 and the college was named according to his name as Cotton College. It was a College of Arts at the beginning but later it was known more as a college of Science. The light of higher education was first brought to this region by the British government. The jobs for the educated people were remained limited to administration and official recording works and judiciary mainly. The teachings of Cotton College had provided the jobs to pass out graduates of the college. Thus the people of this region had got the opportunity to work in the government of British administration. Apart from employment, the education had established a link of communication with the Indian people of other regions. The teachings had brightened the power of imagination and statesmanship of individuals to think for the people and the country. A sense of patriotism was also being injected into the minds of the educated people and had tempted them to be the volunteers of Indian Independence movement later on and had made them mentally ready to face all sorts of tyranny and slaughter of freedom movement. During the time of Independence movement the people of the area even did not hesitate to sacrifice their life for the cause of the country. This growth of oneness of Indians was the major achievement of the English education in this region.

2. The System of Education should change with the change of Time:

After Independence, the system of education in Cotton College remains the same as that was being set up by the British Rulers. The method of education was good for bringing an understanding and awareness among its citizen but failed to contribute to the economy of state substantially. After achieving Independence, India expanded education through the creation of Universities in all the states in a massive scale. Innumerable colleges for higher education had been grown up in different states. In Assam also good number of college had immersed to provide education in Arts and basic natural Science. Number of Polytechnic and Engineering Colleges were built up to maintain the system of administration that was being left off by the British government. The educated people were absorbed in the discharge of functions of State machinery. But the number of educated people had produced by this and other Institutes every year was far exceeding than the number of jobs that had been immersed. This had led to the evolution of huge number unemployed youths creating frustration and mistrust with the administration. The charm and prestige so long enjoyed by the graduates of this premier Institute, Cotton College had died down. Even then, having being a college of British period, a College of reputation attracted students from all corners of Assam. The science sections of Cotton College in intermediate level of education have been imparting basic fundamental knowledge with great reputation. After getting the basic knowledge, students are going to different streams for further education. To day a good number of students of Cotton College are doing their job under different capacity in India and abroad with great success. The government of Assam is giving the highest amount of grant for the functions of Cotton College particularly in science section in compare to other Institute. But the question had rightly raised what had Cotton College contributed in the economy of the State in the last sixty years after achieving Indian Independence. Is it for the knowledge of basic science, the government is spending so much of money keeping a huge academic staff?

3. The small country Taiwan changes with the change of Technology:

An island but a small country Taiwan, who achieved independence almost in the same period of time of Indian independence were successful in achieving economic solvency much earlier than India. The reason behind was the contribution of few Institute of Science and Technology in the field of computer science. Taiwan, that had attracted people from main land China in textile industry since 1970, had now switched over to the new technology developed out of semiconductor devices. An Industrial Park gradually had been built up where nearing a total of 370 high –tech companies, mainly involved in the semiconductor, computer, telecommunication and optoelectronics industries, had been established by the end of 2003. Now Taiwan is the only country in the world that has the highest density of 12-inch wafer-producing fabs. The growth of industrialization has enhanced the export faster with the growth of GDP about 8% since three decades. Initially Taiwan was attracted by cheap labour because of its industrial growth in textiles and toys but now Taiwan is becoming the center of attraction of highly paid skilled computer engineers. Science students of Cotton College has immense potential, had they been involved in the learning of manufacturing semiconducting devices much earlier at the beginning of growing technology, they would have been utilized better in the progress of the economy of the state by the time. Professor R.N.Bhattacharjee, who retired after a service to cotton college for more than twenty five years, always aspires to make the College at per with the development of the modern science and technology. Even after retirement he tried to make it a Mini-University, so that the College can make its own syllabus and engage the talent student to the R & D works of modern technology and science.

4. Cotton College students have the potential to learn Nanotechnology:

The British had ruled India for nearly two hundred years since 1757 but it is only in 1901 the British administration had given attention towards North-East India for academic improvement and established a college at Guwahati, namely Cotton College. By the time period of one hundred years, the college had produced a good number of academician and administrator. After independence of India the urge for science education had increased with day to day discoveries of new sciences. In spite of poor infrastructure, the students of this college had shown their ability in all branches of science and their attachment had now been spread to far away developed country like U.K., USA and the European Countries. There was no dirt of student’s potentiality. Had the infrastructure of advanced technology been developed in Cotton College in time, the out come of quality-product would have been much more. Now another new technology is emerging and it is expected very soon, that the new science would very soon supersede all other technology. It would be appropriate time to develop the infrastructure to visualize the potentiality of the students of this college in the improvement of science and technology. If the potential workers of adjacent country of Taiwan and South Korean had explored the secrets of Computer and electronics, the students of Cotton College would have discovered the secrets of Nano- technology in near future provided the infrastructure had been provided with.

5. An Introduction of Nanotechnology:

The property of matter not only depends upon the character of the atom of the element but also upon the size of the system. A number of physical phenomena get pronounced as the size of the system decreases where the electronic properties of solids are altered with reductions in particle size. Physical property such as mechanical, electrical or optical tends to change abruptly in compare to macroscopic systems. The increase in surface area to volume ratio (n/V) is one of the reasons of the change of property. E.g. an opaque substance becomes transparent (copper), a stable materials turns combustible (aluminum), solids turn into liquids at room temperature (gold); insulators become conductors (silicon). In nanotechnology, a particle is defined as a small object that behaves as a whole unit in terms of its transport and properties. It is classified in terms of diameter size. The particles are said to be fine for a range between 100 – 2500 nanometers, and ultrafine particles for a range between 1 – 100 nanometers. These ultrafine particles are nano-particles, the properties of which differ significantly from those observed in fine particles. Nanometer sized single crystals, are often referred to as nano-crystals. Intense scientific research is now going on in different countries of the world to find out the use of nano-crystal in biomedical, optical and electric fields. When the world is working non-stop in search of Nano-particles thinking of a new technology to emerge in near future, how will Cotton College student have left behind before the world go to see a new technology?

6. A Historical background of Nanotechnology (or nanotech):

The physicist Richard Feynman was the first to deliver a talk on the concept of ‘nano-technology’ at an American Physical Society meeting on 29th December, 1959. He described a process how to manipulate individual atoms and molecules. How it could cause a change in the magnitude of physical phenomena where the force of gravity would become less important than that of surface tension and Van der Waals attraction. The development of Nanotechnology as well as nano-science was started in the early part of 1980 after the invention of scanning tunneling microscope (STM). This led to the discovery of fullerenes, carbon nano-tubes, and nano-particles. Research and development work advanced a step further after the invention of atomic force microscope (AFM) in 1986. In applied science it concerns with the control of matter on an atomic and molecular scale which deals with structures of 100 nanometers or smaller involving developing materials or devices within that size. It is a highly diverse and multidisciplinary field to develop new materials with dimensions on the nano-scale. Nanotechnology has the potential to create many new materials and devices with wide-ranging applications, such as in medicine, electronics, and energy production. One nanometer (nm) is one billionth, or 10-9 of a meter. For example, C- C bond lengths, or the spacing between these atoms in a molecule, are in the range of 0.12 – 0.15 nm, a DNA double-helix has a diameter around 2 nm. Nano-particles exhibit a number of special properties relative to bulk material. For example, the bending of copper wire, copper ribbon etc, occurs with the movement of copper atom clustering at about the 50 nm scale. Copper nano-particles smaller than 50 nm are considered super hard materials that do not exhibit the same malleability and ductility as found in bulk copper of copper wire or copper ribbon. Zinc Oxide particles have been found to superior UV blocking properties compared to its bulk substitute. This is one of the reasons why it is often used in the sunscreen lotions. Clay nano-particle when incorporated into polymer matrices increases reinforcement, leading to stronger plastics. These nano-particles are hard, and impart their properties to the polymer (plastic).

7. Classification of Nano-particles:

Nano-partilces after attainment of its final state of range of size are often referred to as clusters. Nano-spheres, nano-rods, and nano-cups are just few of the shapes that have been grown up. Metal, dielectric, and semiconductor nano-particles have been formed along with hybrid structures. In the case of semiconducting material nano-particles are labeled as quantumdots when the particle size reduces to 10nm. Such nano-scale particles were used in biomedical applications as drug carriers or imaging agents. Now it is possible to manufacture soft nano-particles. One such kind of nano-particle of semi-solid nature has been manufactured called liposome. Various types of liposome nano-particles are currently used clinically as delivery systems for anticancer drugs and vaccines. As the technological utility and advantage of Nano-particles is endless, the possible danger is also there without any limit. It is because of the high surface to volume ratio, the particle becomes very reactive or catalytic. The high reactive particles could possibly pass through cell membranes in organisms, and their interactions with biological systems are relatively unknown. However, a study has been carried out over animal at San Francisco and the result have shown that some nano-particles can penetrate cells and tissues, move through the body and brain and cause biochemical damage.

8. Fabrication of nano-particles:

There have been several methods experimented since 1980 but two most comparatively convenient methods has been utilizing frequently for the creation of nano-particles for the time being. Most commonly used two methods are: (i) Attrition and (ii) Pyrolysis. In attrition macro or micro scale particles were grounded in a mill or in any other size reducing system. The resulting particles were air classified to recover nano-particles. In pyrolysis, a vapors of burnt liquid or gas was forced to pass through an orifice at high pressure. The resulting particles were air classified to get oxide particles from the gases. It is often results in aggregates and agglomerates rather than singleton particles. Temperature in the order of 10000K produced under thermal plasma or under arc plasma can evaporate small micrometer size particles and after that nano-particles were forming upon cooling. Inert-gas aggregation was sometimes used to make nano-particles from metals with low melting points. The metal was first vaporized in a vacuum chamber and after that the system was super cooled with an inert gas stream when metal vapor was condensing into nanometer-sized particles.

9. Carbon Nano-tubes:

There are different types of carbon nanotubes with varied structures. The most single-walled nano-tubes (SWNT) have a diameter of close to 1 nanometer, with a tube length that can be many thousands of time longer. Its structure can be conceptualized by wrapping a one-atom-thick layer of graphite called grapheme into a seamless cylinder. The way the grapheme sheet is wrapped is represented by a pair of indices (n,m) called the chiral vector. The integer’s n and m denote the number of unit vectors along two directions in the honeycomb crystal lattice of grapheme. If m=0, the nano-tubes are called ‘zigzag’. If n=m, the nano-tubes are called ‘armchair’. Otherwise, they are called ‘chiral’. (i) Single-walled nano-tubes (SWNT) are a very important variety of carbon nano-tubes because they exhibit important electronic properties that are not shared by the multi-walled carbon nano-tube (MWNT) variants. The micro electromechanical scale is the basis of present modern electronics. The invention of single-walled nanotubes has threatened the present electronics with the possibility of using them for miniaturizing electronics beyond the micro electromechanical scale. The most basic building block of these systems is the electric wire, and SWNTs can be excellent conductors.

10 . This animation of a rotating carbon nanotube shows its 3D structure:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Kohlenstoffnanoroehre_Animation.gif

11. 3D model of the three types single-walled carbon nanotubes: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Types_of_Carbon_Nanotubes.png

12. Carbon nanotubes in Memory elements (NRAM):

The use of carbon nano-tubes in computer technology as NRAM would bring a change in the system within few years time when the activity would be much faster.[The joining of two carbon nano-tubes with different electrical properties to form a diode has been shown below]:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode

13. Manufacture of nano-RAM or NRAM [ Nonvolatile random access memory].

The company Nantero has manufactured NRAM, the short name for nano-RAM or nanotube based nonvolatile random access memory. It involved a new memory storage technology. The technology blended together tiny carbon nanotubes with conventional semiconductors. Because the memory formed with elements, nanotubes, is so small, that NRAM technology will achieve very high density making the system 100 times faster. The nanotubes are as rigid as diamond, the wall of which is composed of a single carbon atom and that could conduct electricity as well as copper. The Massachusetts based American company Nantero, the only company at present in the world was developing NRAM, a high-density nonvolatile random access memory chip using nanotechnology since 2003. It is expected that NRAM will replace all existing forms of memory. The memory is developing with the ability to enable instant-on computers and its application in the networking arena. The production of nanotubes is highly cost affective but as the days passed off with advance of research, the cost of mass- producing nanotubes has plummeted. Professor H. P. Roychoudhury, who gave a service to Cotton College for thirty three years, believed in the high quality of the students of the college and wishes the students to join the Nantro if opportunity aroused and does a dedicated job in the evolution of new technology for a beautiful word. [The writer will not be responsible for the mistake if any for the technological term and the writing is solely on individual capacity for an academic interest.