Nanotechnology

I INTRODUCTION

Nanotechnology, the creation and use of materials or devices at extremely small scales. These
materials or devices fall in the range of 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). One nm is equal to one-billionth
of a meter (.000000001 m), which is about 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human
hair. Scientists refer to the dimensional range of 1 to 100 nm as the nanoscale, and materials at
this scale are called nanocrystals or nanomaterials.

The nanoscale is unique because nothing solid can be made any smaller. It is also unique because
many of the mechanisms of the biological and physical world operate on length scales from 0.1 to
100 nm. At these dimensions materials exhibit different physical properties; thus scientists expect
that many novel effects at the nanoscale will be discovered and used for breakthrough
technologies.

A number of important breakthroughs have already occurred in nanotechnology. These

developments are found in products used throughout the world. Some examples are catalytic
converters in automobiles that help remove air pollutants, devices in computers that read from and
write to the hard disk, certain sunscreens and cosmetics that transparently block harmful radiation
from the Sun, and special coatings for sports clothes and gear that help improve the gear and
possibly enhance the athlete’s performance. Still, many scientists, engineers, and technologists
believe they have only scratched the surface of nanotechnology’s potential.

Nanotechnology is in its infancy, and no one can predict with accuracy what will result from the full
flowering of the field over the next several decades. Many scientists believe it can be said with
confidence, however, that nanotechnology will have a major impact on medicine and health care;
energy production and conservation; environmental cleanup and protection; electronics,
computers, and sensors; and world security and defense.
II WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY?

Nanometer Crystal
A germanium crystal only 1 nanometer (nm) wide is seen in this computer-generated image.
Paul Sakuma/AP/Wide World Photos

To grasp the size of the nanoscale, consider the diameter of an atom, the basic building block of
matter. The hydrogen atom, one of the smallest naturally occurring atoms, is only 0.1 nm in
diameter. In fact, nearly all atoms are roughly 0.1 nm in size, too small to be seen by human eyes.
Atoms bond together to form molecules, the smallest part of a chemical compound. Molecules that
consist of about 30 atoms are only about 1 nm in diameter. Molecules, in turn, compose cells, the
basic units of life. Human cells range from 5,000 to 200,000 nm in size, which means that they are
larger than the nanoscale. However, the proteins that carry out the internal operations of the cell
are just 3 to 20 nm in size and so have nanoscale dimensions. Viruses that attack human cells are
about 10 to 200 nm, and the molecules in drugs used to fight viruses are less than 5 nm in size.

The possibility of building new materials and devices that operate at the same scale as the basic
functions of nature explains why so much attention is being devoted to the world below 100 nm.
But 100 nm is not some arbitrary dividing line. This is the length at which special properties have
been observed in materials—properties that are profoundly different at the nanoscale.

Human beings have actually known about these special properties for some time, although they
did not understand why they occurred. Glassworkers in the Middle Ages, for example, knew that by
breaking down gold into extremely small particles and sprinkling these fine particles into glass the
gold would change in color from yellow to blue or green or red, depending on the size of the
particle. They used these particles to help create the beautiful stained glass windows found in
cathedrals throughout Europe, such as the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France. These
glassworkers did not realize it at the time, but they had created gold nanocrystals. At scales above
100 nm gold appears yellow, but at scales below 100 nm it exhibits other colors.

Nanotechnologists are intrigued by the possibility of creating humanmade devices at the

molecular, or nanoscale, level. That is why the field is sometimes called molecular nanotechnology.
Some nanotechnologists are also aiming for these devices to self-replicate—that is, to
simultaneously carry out their function and increase their number, just as living organisms do. To
some early proponents of the field, this aspect of nanotechnology is the most important. If tiny
functional units could be assembled at the molecular level and made to self-replicate under
controlled conditions, tremendous efficiencies could be realized. However, many scientists doubt
the possibility of self-replicating nanostructures.

III APPROACHES TO NANOTECHNOLOGY

Scientists are currently experimenting with two approaches to making structures or devices at the
scale of 1 to 100 nm. These methods are called the top-down approach and the bottom-up
approach.

A Top-down Approach

In the top-down process, technologists start with a bulk material and carve out a smaller structure
from it. This is the process commonly used today to create computer chips, the tiny memory and
logic units, also known as integrated circuits that operate computers. To produce a computer chip,
thin films of materials, known as a mask, are deposited on a silicon wafer, and the unneeded
portions are etched away. Almost all of today’s commercial computer chips are larger than 100
nm. However, the technology to create ever smaller and faster computer chips has already gone
below 100 nm. Smaller and faster chips will enable computers to become even smaller and to
perform many more functions more quickly.

The top-down approach, which is sometimes called microfabrication or nanofabrication, uses

advanced lithographic techniques to create structures the size of or smaller than current
commercial computer chips. These advanced lithographic techniques include optical lithography
and electron-beam (e-beam) lithography. Optical lithography currently can be used to produce
structures as small as 100 nm, and efforts are being made to create even smaller features using
this technique. E-beam lithography can create structures as small as 20 nm. However, e-beam
lithography is not suitable for large-scale production because it is too expensive. Already the cost
of building fabrication facilities for producing computer chips using optical lithography approaches
several billion dollars.

Ultimately, the top-down approach to producing nanostructures is not only likely to be too costly
but also technically impossible. Assembling computer chips or other materials at the nanoscale is
unworkable for a fundamental reason. To reduce a material in a specifically designed way, the tool
that is used to do the work must have a dimension or precision that is finer than the piece to be
reduced. Thus, a machine tool must have a cutting edge finer than the finest detail to be cut.
Likewise the lithographic mask used to etch away the locations on a silicon wafer must have a
precision in its construction finer than the material to be removed. At the nanoscale, where the
material to be removed could be a single molecule or atom, it is impossible to meet this condition.

B Bottom-up Approach

As a result, scientists have become interested in another vastly different approach to creating
structures at the nanoscale, known as the bottom-up approach. The bottom-up approach involves
the manipulation of atoms and molecules to form nanostructures. The bottom-up approach avoids
the problem of having to create an ever-finer method of reducing material to the nanoscale size.
Instead, nanostructures would be assembled atom by atom and molecule by molecule, from the
atomic level up, just as occurs in nature. However, assembly at this scale has its own challenges.

In school, children learn about some of these challenges when they study the random Brownian
motion seen in particles suspended in liquids such as water. The particles themselves are not
moving. Rather, the water molecules that surround the particles are constantly in motion, and this
motion causes the molecules to strike the particles at random. Atoms also exhibit such random
motion due to their kinetic energy. Temperature and the strength of the bonds holding the atoms
in place determine the degree to which atoms move. Even in solids at room temperature—the chair
you may be sitting on, for example—atoms move about in a process called diffusion. This ability of
atoms to move about increases as a substance changes from solid to liquid to gas. If scientists and
engineers are to successfully assemble at the atomic scale, they must have the means to
overcome this type of behavior.

A clear example of such a challenge occurred in 1990 when scientists from the International
Business Machines Corporation (IBM) used a scanning probe microscope tip to assemble individual
xenon atoms so that they formed the letters IBM on a nickel surface. To prevent the atoms from
moving away from their assigned locations, the nickel surface was cooled to temperatures close to
absolute zero, the lowest temperature theoretically possible and characterized by the complete
absence of heat. (Absolute zero is -273.15°C [-459.67°F].) At this low temperature, the atoms
possessed very little kinetic energy and were essentially frozen.

Achieving this temperature, however, is impractical and uneconomical for the operation of
commercial devices. Nevertheless, the ability of scientists to manipulate atoms was one of the first
indications that the bottom-up approach might work. It also signaled the emergence of
nanotechnology as an experimental science.

IV THE EMERGENCE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY

The concept of nanotechnology originated with American physicist Richard P. Feynman. In a talk to
the American Physical Society in December 1959, entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom:
An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics,” Feynman provided examples of the benefits to be
obtained by producing ultrasmall structures. Feynman calculated that the entire content of
Encyclopædia Britannica could be reduced to fit on the head of a pin, and he estimated that all of
printed human knowledge could be reduced to fit on 35 normal-sized pages.
Although he did not coin the term nanotechnology, the visionary Feynman predicted key aspects of
today’s nanotechnology, such as the importance of advanced microscopes and the development of
new fabrication methods. He also emphasized the importance of combining the knowledge, tools,
and methodologies used by physicists, chemists, and biologists. He pointed to the natural world as
an example of how much information and function can be packed into a tiny volume. A single cell,
for example, can move, perform biochemical processes, and contains within its DNA molecule the
complete knowledge of the design and function of the complex organism of which it is part.

Feynman believed the creation of nanoscale devices was possible within the boundaries set by the
laws of physics. He specifically cited the possibility of atom-by-atom assembly—that is, building a
structure (a molecule or a device) from individual atoms precisely joined by chemical forces. This
possibility led to the concept of a “universal assembler,” a robotic device at nanoscale dimensions
that could automatically assemble atoms to create molecules of the desired chemical compounds.
Such a device, for example, could assemble carbon atoms to form low-cost, large diamonds, a
potentially important industrial material, now used only in limited quantities due to the high cost of
mining and synthesis. Such synthetic diamonds could have many industrial and consumer
applications because they are lightweight and yet extremely hard, and are electrically insulating
but excellent conductors of heat. The idea of a nanoscale robotic assembler continues to be
promoted by some researchers, although there is considerable debate whether such a device is
indeed possible within the known laws of chemistry, physics, and thermodynamics.

Nanotechnology began being promoted as a key component of future technology in the late 1970s.
The term nanotechnology was first used in 1974 by Japanese scientist Norio Taniguchi in a paper
titled “On the Basic Concept of Nanotechnology.” However, the term was also used by American
engineer K. Eric Drexler in the book Engines of Creation (1986), which had a greater impact and
helped accelerate the growth of the field. By this time, major breakthroughs had been achieved in
industry, such as the formation of nanoparticle catalysts made of nonreactive metals and used in
catalytic converters found in automobiles. These catalysts chemically reduced noxious nitrogen
oxides to benign nitrogen and simultaneously oxidized poisonous carbon monoxide to form carbon
dioxide.

A The Tools of Nanotechnology

The scientific community began serious work in nanoscience when tools became available in the
late 1970s and early 1980s—first to probe and later to manipulate and control materials and
systems at the nanoscale. These tools include the transmission electron microscope (TEM), the
atomic force microscope (AFM), and the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). See also
Microscope.

A1 Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM)

The TEM uses a high-energy electron beam to probe material with a sample thickness of less than
100 nm. The electron beam is directed onto the object to be magnified. Some of the electrons are
absorbed by or bounce off the object, while others pass through the object and form a magnified
image of the material. A photographic plate, fluorescent screen, or digital camera placed behind
the material records the magnified image. TEMs can magnify an object up to 30 million times. By
contrast a conventional optical microscope can magnify objects up to 1,000 times. TEMs are
suitable for imaging objects with dimensions of less than 100 nm, and they yield information on the
size of the nanostructure, its composition, and its crystal structures.

The TEM is a popular and powerful instrument within the nanoscience community. Most of the
images published in scientific journals on nanocrystals found in semiconductors were recorded with
this instrument. TEMs can easily visualize individual atoms within semiconductor nanocrystals.

A2 Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)

An AFM uses a tiny silicon tip, usually less than 100 nm in diameter, as a probe to create an image
of a sample material. As the silicon probe moves along the surface of the sample, the electrons of
the atoms in the sample repel the electrons in the probe. The AFM adjusts the height of the probe
to keep the force on the sample constant. A sensing mechanism records the up-and-down
movements of the probe and feeds the data into a computer, which creates a three-dimensional
image of the surface of the sample. Thus, the exact surface topography can be recorded with
precise height information, and individual atoms in the surface can be imaged. The lateral
resolution of this technique, however, is sometimes poor.

A3 Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM)

An STM uses a tiny probe, the tip of which can be as small as a single atom, to scan an object. An
STM takes advantage of a wavelike property of electrons called tunneling. Tunneling allows
electrons emitted from the probe of the microscope to penetrate, or tunnel into, the surface of the
object being examined. The rate at which the electrons tunnel from the probe to the surface is
related to the distance between the probe and the surface. These moving electrons generate a tiny
electric current that the STM measures. The STM constantly adjusts the height of the probe to keep
the current constant. By tracking how the height of the probe changes as the probe moves over
the surface, scientists can get a detailed map of the surface. The map can be so detailed that
individual atoms on the surface are visible.

B Manipulating Atoms

In addition to imaging, AFM and STM are also useful for manipulating nanostructures. In this
regard, the tips resemble “arms” that can be used to manipulate individual atoms. For example,
not only did scientists at IBM move and align individual atoms on a flat surface so that the atoms
spelled IBM, but also they used an STM to position 48 iron atoms into a circular structure, where
interesting phenomenon could be visually inspected. This manipulation was only possible at
extremely low temperatures.

Although the AFM and STM are capable of moving atoms and individual nanostructures, the
process is very slow and time-consuming. Scientists hope to develop this technique further by
using massive arrays of scanning tips instead of just using one. Such arrays could help speed up
the manipulation of atoms, although it would also require extensive micro- and nanofabrication.
C Synthesizing Carbon Molecules and Other Developments

Smallest Ultraviolet Laser

Hundreds of nanowires—tiny forms of carbon molecules only five to ten atoms wide—make up the world’s
smallest ultraviolet laser, which was created by researchers in the early 21st century.
Peidong Yang, University of California Berkeley

Several other developments in the 1980s and 1990s stimulated interest in the potential of
nanotechnology. In 1985 chemists at Rice University in Houston, Texas, led by Richard E. Smalley,
discovered they could make perfectly round carbon molecules consisting of 60 carbon atoms. The
scientists nicknamed these synthetic molecules buckyballs, or fullerenes, for their resemblance to
the geodesic domes designed by architect R. Buckminster Fuller. Being able to make synthetic
carbon was exciting for several reasons. Carbon is the fundamental building block of material in
living things. Carbon atoms also combine easily with other atoms and can form more compounds
than any other element. Carbon atoms also form strong bonds, which can help form strong but
relatively lightweight materials. But the special properties of the synthetic buckyballs were even
more exciting. When combined with other substances buckyballs could act in a variety of ways.
They could be conductors of electricity, insulators, semiconductors, or superconductors. Their
possible applications seemed immense.

Then in 1991 Japanese physicist Sumio Iijima published a widely noticed report that appeared to
build on the buckyball discovery. While studying fullerenes, Iijima reported finding a tubular
version known as a carbon nanotube, a thin, extraordinarily stiff form of carbon that has been
described as “the strongest material that will ever be made.” In 1993 two researchers working
independently—Iijima in Japan and American physicist Donald S. Bethune of the IBM Almaden
Research Center in California—developed a nanotube that was only a single atom thick. The
breakthrough had enormous implications. The use of these so-called single-wall nanotubes as
electronic circuits, for example, could lead to computer chips containing billions of transistors, as
compared with the 42 million transistors that fit on current chips. Computers could become ever
smaller, faster, and more powerful. And that was only one of a variety of possible applications.

The increasing focus of the scientific community on the nanoscale led the United States
government in 1999 to identify nanotechnology as a research priority. In 2000 President Bill Clinton
announced the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) with a budget of $442 million. Shortly
thereafter, the leading industrial nations of the world followed the U.S. lead. By 2003 the United
States, the European Union (EU), and Japan had major nanotechnology initiatives with funding
levels approaching $1 billion per year to promote the development of the field. In addition, other
countries throughout the world launched nanotechnology initiatives with aggregate funding at a
similar level to the three leading government initiatives. In the U.S. budget approved in 2003, $3.7
billion was approved for nanotechnology research over the next four years.

In addition to the support of federal governments, state governments also became active in
support of nanotechnology. Examples in the United States include the New York Nanotechnology
Initiative, the California Nanosystems Institute, Pennsylvania’s Nanotechnology Institute, and the
Texas Nanotechnology Initiative. An international example is NanoBioNet of the state of Saarland,
Germany.

By 2003 significant commercial products had already been developed based on nanotechnologies.
The devices on computers known as read-write heads, which read data from a computer hard disk
and also write data to the disk, were built from multilayer nanometer-thick film. These films
increased the sensitivity of the read-write heads so that many more bits of data can be packed on
the surface of the hard disks. Consequently, the memory capacity found in modern personal
computers dramatically increased, and relatively inexpensive 60-gigabyte hard disks became
available in competitively priced computers.

Another nanotechnology product line was nanoparticle formulations of zinc or titanium oxides that
absorb harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun but are invisible to the eye. This technology has
enabled cosmetic companies to offer skin protection in their products without compromising
appearance. The usually white skin creams become transparent upon application because the
nanoparticles are too small to scatter light. Nanocoating technology on clothes has yielded the
most stain-resistant clothes ever produced. Olympic-level swimmers have been aided in setting
many new world records by using swimsuits with clothing fibers bonded to hydrophobic (not
compatible with water) molecules. These nanocoated swimsuits create less friction with water so
swimmers can swim faster.

In the early 21st century corporations began to identify nanoscience and nanotechnology as a field
of development unto itself with many common concepts and approaches that could impact broadly
across multiple product lines. It became common for major high-tech corporations to have a
specific manager or leading scientist assigned to the development of corporate nanotechnology
strategy, research, and development. In addition to the larger corporations, the field also began to
yield many small start-up companies. As of 2003 most of these companies were involved in
nanomaterials production, simple nanodevice fabrication, and the production of tools used to
research and manufacture at the nanoscale. In the investment community, an increasing number
of venture capitalist enterprises began to follow nanotechnology closely, and the first funds
devoted solely to investment in nanotechnology companies were created.

V CHALLENGES CONFRONTING NANOTECHNOLOGY

The Tiniest Wires

An image from a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) reveals metallic wires only eight to ten atoms wide.
Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, developed the nanowires, the tiniest wires yet
created. Nanowires could lead to a variety of applications, including extremely small and fast computers.
Paul Sakuma/AP/Wide World Photos

A major challenge facing nanotechnology is how to make a desired nanostructure and then
integrate it into a fully functional system visible to the human eye. This requires creating an
interface between structures built at the nanometer scale and structures built at the micrometer
scale. A common strategy is to use the so-called “top-down meets bottom-up” approach. This
approach involves making a nanostructure with tools that operate at the nanoscale, organizing the
nanostructures with certain assembly techniques, and then interfacing with the world at the
micrometer scale by using a top-down nanofabrication process.
However, technical barriers exist on the road toward this holy grail of nanotechnology. For
example, the bottom-up approach generally yields nanocrystals of 1 nm, a dimension that is too
small for current nanofabrication techniques to interact with. As a result, interfacing a nanocrystal
with the outside world is a highly complex and expensive process. A novel procedure must be
developed to overcome this barrier before many of the synthetic nanostructures can become part
of mainstream industrial applications.

Also, as the size of the nanostructure gets increasingly thinner, the surface area of the material
increases dramatically in relation to the total volume of the structure. This benefits applications
that require a big surface area, but for other applications this is less desirable. For example, it is
undesirable to have a relatively large surface area when carbon nanotubes are used as an
electrical device, such as a transistor. This large surface area tends to increase the possibility that
other unwanted layers of molecules will adhere to the surface, harming the electrical performance
of the nanotube devices. Scientists are tackling this issue to improve the reliability of many
nanostructure-based electronic devices.

Another important issue relates to the fact that the properties of nanocrystals are extremely
sensitive to their size, composition, and surface properties. Any tiny change can result in
dramatically different physical properties. Preventing such changes requires high precision in the
development of nanostructure synthesis and fabrication. Only after this is achieved can the
reproducibility of nanostructure-based devices be improved to a satisfactory level. For example,
although carbon nanotubes can be fashioned into high-performance transistors, there is a
significant technical hurdle regarding their composition and structure. Carbon nanotubes come in
two “flavors”; one is metallic and the other is semiconducting. The semiconducting flavor makes
good transistors. However, when these carbon nanotubes are produced, mixtures of metallic and
semiconducting tubes are entangled together and so do not make good transistors. There are two
possible solutions for this problem. One is to develop a precise synthetic methodology that
generates only semiconductor nanotubes. The other is to develop ways to separate the two types
of nanotubes. Both strategies are being researched in labs worldwide.
VI FUTURE IMPACT OF NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotube Wire
A blue carbon nanotube wire just 10 atoms wide lies against platinum electrodes in an image magnified
120,000 times. The wire, which is .0000015 mm (.0000001 in) in diameter, is an example of the type of
circuitry that might someday be used in next-generation computer technology, such as molecular computers.
S.J. Tans et al, Delft University of Technology/Science Photo Library/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Nanotechnology is expected to have a variety of economic, social, environmental, and national

security impacts. In 2000 the National Science Foundation began working with the National
Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to address nanotechnology’s possible impacts and to propose ways
of minimizing any undesirable consequences.

For example, nanotechnology breakthroughs may result in the loss of some jobs. Just as the
development of the automobile destroyed the markets for the many products associated with
horse-based transportation and led to the loss of many jobs, transformative products based on
nanotechnology will inevitably lead to a similar result in some contemporary industries. Examples
of at-risk occupations are jobs manufacturing conventional televisions. Nanotechnology-based
field-emission or liquid-crystal display (LCD), flat-panel TVs will likely make those jobs obsolete.
These new types of televisions also promise to radically improve picture quality. In field-emission
TVs, for example, each pixel (picture element) is composed of a sharp tip that emits electrons at
very high currents across a small potential gap into a phosphor for red, green, or blue. The pixels
are brighter, and unlike LCDs that lose clarity in sunlight, field-emission TVs retain clarity in bright
sunlight. Field-emission TVs use much less energy than conventional TVs. They can be made very
thin—less than a millimeter—although actual commercial devices will probably have a bit more
heft for structural stability and ruggedness. Samsung claims it will be releasing the first
commercial model, based on carbon nanotube emitters, by early 2004.

Other potential job losses could be those of supermarket cashiers if nanotechnology-based,

flexible, thin-film computers housed in plastic product wrappings enable all-at-once checkout.
Supermarket customers could simply wheel their carts through a detection gateway, similar in
shape to the magnetic security systems found at the exits of stores today. As with any
transformative technology, however, nanotechnology can also be expected to create many new
jobs.

The societal impacts from nanotechnology-based advances in human health care may also be
large. A ten-year increase in human life expectancy in the United States due to nanotechnology
advances would have a significant impact on Social Security and retirement plans. As in the fields
of biotechnology and genomics, certain development paths in nanotechnology are likely to have
ethical implications.

Nanomaterials could also have adverse environmental impacts. Proper regulation should be in
place to minimize any harmful effects. Because nanomaterials are invisible to the human eye,
extra caution must be taken to avoid releasing these particles into the environment. Some
preliminary studies point to possible carcinogenic (cancer-causing) properties of carbon nanotubes.
Although these studies need to be confirmed, many scientists consider it prudent now to take
measures to prevent any potential hazard that these nanostructures may pose. However, the vast
majority of nanotechnology-based products will contain nanomaterials bound together with other
materials or components, rather than free-floating nano-sized objects, and will therefore not pose
such a risk.

At the same time, nanotechnology breakthroughs are expected to have many environmental
benefits such as reducing the emission of air pollutants and cleaning up oil spills. The large surface
areas of nanomaterials give them a significant capacity to absorb various chemicals. Already,
researchers at Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, part of the U.S.
Department of Energy, have used a porous silica matrix with a specially functionalized surface to
remove lead and mercury from water supplies.

Finally, nanotechnology can be expected to have national security uses that could both improve
military forces and allow for better monitoring of peace and inspection agreements. Efforts to
prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons or to detect the existence of biological and chemical
weapons, for example, could be improved with nanotech devices.

VII NANOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH

Major centers of nanoscience and nanotechnology research are found at universities and national
laboratories throughout the world. Many specialize in particular aspects of the field. Centers in
nanoelectronics and photonics (the study of the properties of light) are found at the Albany
Institute of Nanotechnology in Albany, New York; Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; the
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); and Columbia University in New York City. In
addition, Cornell hosts the Nanobiotechnology Center.

Universities with departments specializing in nanopatterning and assembly include Northwestern

University in Evanston, Illinois, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge.
Biological and environmental-based studies of nanoscience exist at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia, Rice University in Houston, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Studies in
nanomaterials are taking place at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of
Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Other university-affiliated departments engaged in nanotechnology
research include the Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana; the
University of South Carolina NanoCenter in Columbia; the Nanomanufacturing Research Institute at
Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Center for Nano Science and
Technology at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. By 2003 more than 100 U.S.
universities had departments or research institutes specializing in nanotechnology.

Other major research efforts are taking place at national laboratories, such as the Center for
Integrated Nanotechnologies at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, both in New Mexico; the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee; the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven
National Laboratory in Upton, New York; the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National
Laboratory outside Chicago, Illinois; and the Molecular Foundry at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

Internationally, the Max-Planck Institutes in Germany, the Centre National de la Recherche

Scientifique (CNRS) in France, and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology of Japan are all engaged in nanotechnology research.

Contributed By:
Peidong Yang
David E. Luzzi
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.