NanoTech + Art (Week8)

Nanotechnology is seemingly very difficult and complicated field to dig into as a political science major student. This is never familiar for myself and many other of my fellow students who are not studying science. Watching the lecture videos this week, Dr. Gimzewski explained how nanotechnology originated, developed, and utilized in many parts of our lives today. Even though it is always near to us, we don't really recognize the existences of those. Nevertheless, it seems hard to collaborate nanotechnology to art, but there has been evidences of nano (nanoparticles) utilizations.
                                   

Stained glass art that you can easily find in church is a good example of the utilization of nanoparticles. Firstly, in the lecture, nanoparticles are introduced to have diameters between 1 and 100 nanometers. Using this nano-sized small particles, of course they didn't know the nanotechnology at that point, medieval artisans conducted alchemical experiment adding gold chloride to molten glass. This is the beginning of the stained glass; analysis of the stained glass revealed that gold and silver nanoparticles, acting as quantum dots, reflected red and yellow light, respectively. Different size of the nanoparticles affect the color of the gold particles. Nano-metallurgy played a role in medicine and religion. Both gold and silver nanoparticles were utilized in Biblical times and probably much earlier than that. The famous scientist, Michael Faraday, deduced that the unexpected color was due to the extremely small size of the gold particles.

  

Lycurgus cup is another example of combination between nanotechnology and dichroism in ancient years. Its method of fabrication and the exceptional workmanship involved, and unusual color effect makes this extraordinary. What is important this cup has is dichroic effect achieved by making the glass with tiny proportions of nanoparticles of gold and silver -- Dichroic effect is caused by dichroic material of which visible light is split up into different arrays of colors. Alchemist experimented mixture of gold and silver alloys with several different proportions. The Lycurgus Cup illustrates a short-lived technology developed by ancient Roman glass-workers. They discovered that glass could be colored red, and unusual color change effects generated by the addition of a precious metal bearing material when the glass was molten thanks to the development of nanoparticles. However, the inability to control the colorant process meant that relatively few glasses of this type were produced, and even fewer survive, which brought great impact on red-green dichroism.

Citations:
Chan, Chi. "From Nanotech to Nanoscience | Chemical Heritage Foundation." From Nanotech to Nanoscience | Chemical Heritage Foundation. Chemical Heritage Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 May 2015. <http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/media/magazine/articles/26-2-from-nanotech-to-nanoscience.aspx>.

Freestone, Ian. "The Lycurgus Cup – A Roman Nanotechnology." The Lycurgus Cup – A Roman Nanotechnology (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 24 May 2015. <http://www.arne-lueker.de/Objects/work/Surface%20Plamons/lycurgus.pdf>.

Gilleo, Ken. "The Alchemy of Nanotechnology." CircuiTree (2006): n. pag. Web. 24 May 2015. <http://www.et-trends.com/files/The_Alchemy_of_Nanotechnology.pdf>.

Nanotech Jim Pt3. Dr. Gimzeweski. Lecture. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 May 2015. <https://youtu.be/X0HCNiU_108>.

Nanotech Jim Pt4. Dr. Gimzeweski. Lecture. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 May 2015. <https://youtu.be/yHCuZetAIhk>.

Sciau, Philippe. "Nanoparticles in Ancient Materials: The Metallic Lustre Decorations of Medieval Ceramics." The Delivery of Nanoparticles (2012): n. pag. Web. 24 May 2015.