Outlook for Industry


Ongoing R&D programs in nanotechnology promise to increase the efficiency of traditional industries and to bring radically new applications, for the following reasons:

  • Numerous newly designed, advanced materials and manufacturing processes will be built by 2015 using control at the nanoscale level in at least one key component. Silicon transistors will reach dimensions of 10nm or smaller and will be integrated with molecular or other kinds of nanoscale systems.

  • Suffering from chronic illnesses has already been reduced through advances in technology. It is conceivable that by 2015, techniques for detecting and treating tumors in their first year of occurrence could be developed that might greatly mitigate suffering and death from cancer.

  • The convergence of science and engineering at the nanoscale level will establish a mainstream pattern for applying and integrating nanotechnology with biology, electronics, medicine, learning, and other fields. The science and engineering of nanobiosystems will become essential to human health care and biotechnology. Life-cycle sustainability and biocompatibility will be pursued in the development of new products.

  • Knowledge development and education will originate from the nanoscale instead of the microscale level. A new education paradigm based, not on disciplines, but on unity of nature and integration of education and research, will be tested for educational grades K16.

  • Nanotechnology businesses and organizations will be restructured with an eye toward integration with other technologies, distributed production, continuing education, and the formation of consortia of complementary activities. Traditional and emerging technologies will be equally affected.

Nanotechnology's capabilities for systematic control and manufacture at the nanoscale level will evolve in four overlapping generations of new products. Each generation is marked here by the creation of the first commercial prototypes using systematic control of the respective phenomena and manufacturing processing:

  • The first generation of products emerged in 2001 in the form of passive nanostructures used to tailor macroscale properties and functions: nanostructured coatings, the dispersion of nanoparticles, and bulk materials such as nanostructured metals, polymers, and ceramics.

  • Second-generation productsactive nanostructures for mechanical, electronic, magnetic, photonic, biological, and other effects, integrated into microscale devices and systemswill begin to emerge several years after the first generation. Examples might include new transistors, components beyond CMOS amplifiers, targeted drugs and chemicals, actuators, artificial muscles, and adaptive structures.

  • Within five to ten years of the second generation, a third can be expected. These products will include nanosystems with 3-D features, using various syntheses and assembling techniques (such as hierarchical, self-organizing bioassembling robotics with emerging behavior), as well as evolutionary approaches. Key challenges include networking at the nanoscale and developing hierarchical architectures. Research focus will shift toward engineering heterogeneous nanostructures and supramolecular systems, some with emerging or evolutionary behaviors. This includes directed multi-scale, self-assembling, artificial tissues and sensorial systems; quantum interactions within nanoscale systems; processing of information using photons or electron spin; assemblies of nanoscale electromechanical systems (NEMS); and the convergence of nano-, bio-, info-, and cognitive platforms integrated from the nanoscale level and up.

  • Within five to ten years of the third generation, the fourth generation can be expected to bring heterogeneous molecular nanosystems, where each molecule in the nanosystem has a specific structure and plays a unique role. Molecules will be used as devices. From their engineered structures and architectures will emerge fundamentally new functions. The design of new atomic and molecular assemblies is expected to increase in importance. This includes macromolecules "by design"; nanoscale machines; directed and multi-scale self-assembly that exploits quantum control; and nanosystem biology for health care, the human-machine interface at the tissue and nervous-system level, and the convergence of nano-bio-info-cognitive domains.

Although expectations for nanotechnology may be overestimated in the short term, the long-term implications for health care, productivity, and the environment appear to be underestimated.




Nanotechnology. Science, Innovation, and Opportunity
Nanotechnology: Science, Innovation, and Opportunity
ISBN: 0131927566
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 204

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