Nanotechnology: Small science not without big challenges

摘要

Over the next decade, nanotech- nology will revolutionize multiple industries—but first it will have The nanotech industry, while still in its infancy, is poised on the brink of a significant growth spurt that could have implications in industries across the economy. Between 1997 and 2003, world-wide government investment in the field rose from $432 million a year to nearly $3 billion a year. Sales of products incorporating emerging nano-technology are predicted to rise from less than .1 percent of global manufacturing output today to 15 percent in 2014, totaling $3.6 trillion, according to a new report from Lux Research (New York), a research and advisory firm focusing on nanotechnology and related technologies. The report, "Sizing Nanotechnology's Value Chain," also predicts that the value of this industry will approach the size of the information technology and telecom industries combined and its revenues will be ten times larger than that of biotechnology. "We project that 4 percent of general manufactured goods, 50 percent of electronics and IT products, and 16 percent of goods in healthcare and life sciences by revenue will incorporate emerging nanotechnology," says Matthew Nordan, vice president of research for Lux Research. "Initially, electronics and IT applications will dominate as microprocessors and memory chips built using new nanoscale processes come to market."