Abstract:
Nanotechnology draws its name from the prefix "nano". A nanometer is one-billionth
of a meter—a distance equal to two to twenty atoms (depending on what type of
atom) laid down next to each other. As interpreted by different people at different
times as meaning anything from 0.1 nm (controlling the arrangement of individual
atoms) to 100 nm or more (anything smaller than microtechnology). The term "nanotechnology"
had been coined in 1974 by Norio Taniguichi to describe semiconductor
processes involving control on the order of a nanometer. From the mid-1980s on
progress in nanometer-scale science and technology exploded, and the term
nanotechnology was appropriated by researchers, media, businesses, and funding
agencies to refer to any technology in which control of the structure of matter on a
scale of nanometers to hundreds of nanometers.
Nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular scale to
create materials with remarkably varied and new properties, is a rapidly expanding
area of research with huge potential to revolutionize our lives and to provide
technological solutions to our problems in agriculture, energy, the environment and
medicine. In order to fully realize this potential, we need to be able to control the
synthesis of nanoparticles, the construction of nano-devices, and the
characterization of materials on the nanoscale and to understand the effects of these
things on environment and health. INSTITUTE OF NANO-SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY (INST) will bring together chemists, physicists and materials
scientists at the forefront of the science of making and characterizing materials at the
nanoscale, with biologists and biochemists applying these discoveries in the
agricultural, medical, biological sphere. It brings together research-active basic and
applied scientists from different backgrounds in an intimate atmosphere to learn
about the needs and scientific advances in their respective fields and to build
interactions and collaborations.
