Nanotechnology Grows Into Billion-Dollar Enterprise

Extract

Small is big. Although “nanotechnology” has been an academic and media buzz word for several years, the federal government and private investors are now backing a host of initiatives with huge sums.

In fiscal year 2005, federal agencies are slated to spend more than $1 billion on nanotechnology—defined as science and engineering at the scale of one billionth of a meter, or about the width of 10 water molecules. Private concerns are expected to ante up another $5 billion to $6 billion in the United States alone.

Nanotech observers say that the streams of money are flowing from the unique nexus that forms nanoscience, where physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, computer science, and medicine mesh in unexpected ways. At conferences, microchip experts mingle with oncologists, who talk shop with materials engineers and toxicologists. Every corner of science, it seems, is going nano.

“`Interdisciplinary' is so overused, but this is the one field where it truly applies,” said Cherry Murray, Ph.D., senior vice president for physical sciences research at Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs, and the organizer of a recent nanotechnology meeting hosted by the National Academies. “ We're just learning to talk to each other.”