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Nanotechnology's Future
Nanotechnology might best be viewed as the application of quantum theory and other nano-specific phenomena to fundamentally control the properties and behavior of matter.
Over the next two decades, this new field for controlling the properties of matter will rise to prominence through four evolutionary stages. By 2015, products incorporating nano tech will contribute approximately $1 trillion to the global economy. About two million workers will be employed in nano tech industries, and three times that many will have supporting jobs.
Today nanotechnology is still in a formative phase, yet, it is maturing rapidly. Between 1997 and 2005, investment in nano tech research and development by governments around the world soared from $432 million to about $4.1 billion, and corresponding industry investment exceeded that of governments by 2005.
Over the next couple of decades, nano tech will evolve through four overlapping stages of industrial prototyping and early commercialization. The first one, which began after 2000, involves the development of passive nano structures: materials with steady structures and functions.? They were often used as parts of a product. These can be as modest as the particles of zinc oxide in sunscreens, but they can also be reinforcing fibers in new composites or carbon nanotube wires in ultra miniaturized electronics.
The second stage, which began in 2005, focuses on active nano structures that change their size, shape, conductivity or other properties during use. New drug-delivery particles could release therapeutic molecules in the body only after they reached their targeted diseased tissues. Electronic components such as transistors and amplifiers with adaptive functions could be reduced to single, complex molecules.
Starting around 2010, workers will cultivate expertise with systems of nano structures, directing large numbers of intricate components to specified ends. One application could involve the guided self-assembly of nano electronic components into three-dimensional circuits and whole devices. Medicine could employ such systems to improve the tissue compatibility of implants, or to create scaffolds for tissue regeneration, or perhaps even to build artificial organs.
After 2015-2020, the field will expand to include molecular nano systems--heterogeneous networks in which molecules and supra molecular structures serve as distinct devices. The proteins inside cells work together this way, but whereas biological systems are water-based and markedly temperature-sensitive, these molecular nano systems will be able to operate in a far wider range of environments and should be much faster. Computers and robots could be reduced to
extraordinarily small sizes. Medical applications might be as ambitious as new types of genetic therapies and antiaging treatments. New interfaces linking people directly to electronics could change telecommunications.
Over
time, therefore, nanotechnology should benefit every industrial sector and health
care field. It should also help the environment through more efficient use of
resources and better methods of pollution control. Nano tech does, however, pose
new challenges to risk governance as well. Internationally, more needs to be done
to collect the scientific information needed to resolve the ambiguities and to
install the proper regulatory oversight. Helping the public to perceive nano tech
soberly in a big picture that retains human values and
Source: sciam.com, Mihail C. Roco, 8/2006
