© 1999 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 1999

5.2 Optimum Nanorobot Shape

The optimum nanorobot shape varies according to the function the device is designed to perform and the environment in which the device must operate.³⁵⁸² A consideration of the many different functions that medical nanodevices are asked to perform suggests several general classes of tasks requiring specific group geometries which drive the choice of optimum individual nanodevice geometry for each task class. For comparison, microscopic unicellular bacteria generally take three basic forms: spherical or ellipsoidal (the cocci), cylindrical or rod-shaped (the bacilli), and curved rod, spiral, or comma-shaped (the spirilla), though there is at least one example of a square bacterium.²⁰²⁸

Last updated on 17 February 2003