What is Nanoscience and Nanotechnology?
Nanoscience is the bundling of sciences that together target human control over the arrangement of atoms and molecules on the nanoscale, this is the scale of individual atoms and molecules.
The way molecules and atoms assemble on the nanoscale into larger structures determines important material properties such as the electrical, optical, and mechanical properties. Of course, it has long been recognized that nature performs this assembly very well in the creation of the sophisticated molecular machinery that supports our life on earth.
By controlling material structures on the scale of 1 to 100 nm, one can, in principle, design radically new materials with unique, tailored properties. Scientists have long imagined the possibility of manipulating individual atoms and molecules. Over the past 20 years it has not only become possible to "see" individual atoms and molecules on the surfaces of materials (i.e., create images) but to move atoms and molecules on the nanoscale as well.
The science and technology involved in this new direction of science
are interdisciplinary, involving physics, chemistry, biology, medicine,
and materials science, among other fields. With the emergence of these
new techniques, the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology were born.
Applications of nanoscience are emerging. Within a few years they are expected to have an impact on virtually all technology sectors and ultimately on many aspects of our daily life. Research in nanotechnologies will lead to new developments in areas such as healthcare, food and environmental research, information technology, security, new materials and energy production and storage. Analysts estimate that the market for nanotech-related products is currently around 2.5 billion € but could rise to hundreds of billions of € by 2010 and one trillion thereafter *.
With the prospect of obtaining greater performance with fewer raw materials,
nanotechnology also has the potential to reduce waste across the whole
life-cycle of products, Thus it can contribute towards realising sustainable
development and to the goals addressed in the European Union's "Agenda
21" and the Environmental Technology Action Plan.
