Nanotechnology Search

A Google search today on 'nanotechnology' yields these as the top ten sites:

1. Wikipedia entry: Nanotechnology
2. Nanotech-Now.com
3. Foresight Institute
4. National Nanotechnology Initiative (US government)
5. Nanotechnology.com (for investors)
6. "What is Nanotechnology?" (CRN's page)
7. Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
8. Institute of Physics (nanotech page)
9. Zyvex (intro page)
10. "How Nanotechnology Will Work" (from How Stuff Works)

Now, according to each of these sites, what is nanotechnology?

1. "...a highly multidisciplinary field, drawing from fields such as colloidal science, device physics, and supramolecular chemistry." (This definition changes frequently, depending on who has last edited it.)
2. "The term ... has evolved over the years via terminology drift to mean 'anything smaller than microtechnology', such as nano powders, and other things that are nanoscale in size, but not referring to mechanisms that have been purposefully built from nanoscale components."
3. "...a group of emerging technologies in which the structure of matter is controlled at the nanometer scale, the scale of small numbers of atoms, to produce novel materials and devices that have useful and unique properties."
4. "...the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications."
5. No definition given.
6. "...the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale."
7. Ditto.
8. No definition given.
9. No simple definition given.
10. "...an umbrella term that covers many areas of research dealing with objects that are measured in nanometers."

If we're looking for a concise definition of nanotechnology, we can start by eliminating sites 5 and 8, which provide nothing at all. The wordy explanations given on sites 2 and 9 don't qualify as concise, nor even as definitions. Site 1 (Wikipedia) is notoriously capricious, so we can rule that one out, and site 10 is not much help either.

So, by dropping the definitions (or lack thereof) from sites 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, and 10, we are left with 3, 4, 6, and 7. Sites 6 and 7 are the same (both CRN), so we can call it three competing definitions.

Okay, now let's compare those three:

Foresight -- "Nanotechnology is a group of emerging technologies in which the structure of matter is controlled at the nanometer scale to produce novel materials and devices that have useful and unique properties."

NNI -- "Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale."

CRN -- "Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced."

The NNI and Foresight each refer to nanotech as a group of related technologies. That's accurate, but it's really more of a description than a definition. Their main points are these:

Foresight -- "the structure of matter is controlled at the nanometer scale to produce novel materials and devices that have useful and unique properties"

NNI -- "understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications"

We can throw out the scale references, since they are implicit in the nano prefix. The key terms remaining are:

Foresight -- "structure of matter" "control" "novel materials and devices" "useful and unique properties"

NNI -- "control of matter" "unique phenomena" "novel applications"

And from our definition:

CRN -- "engineering" "functional systems"

Both Foresight and the NNI use the words control, matter, novel, and unique. By contrast, CRN uses none of them.

Control of matter is, of course, one aspect of engineering; other important aspects are design and application. We believe that over the next few years it will become clear that engineers can exercise sufficient control at the nanoscale to design systems that will function to meet desired applications. Indeed, they already are. Meanwhile, those "unique phenomena" will make a difference only if they can be put to use in functional systems. Hence our definition, which is at once more precise and more meaningful in the real world of today and tomorrow.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Abe]

Interesting comparison of the definitions. I'd agree that inherent in nanotechnology should be the idea of engineering functional systems. However, 'nanotechnology' has evolved into what seems to be a new catch all buzzword for any research at the nanolength scale, applied or not. As such, many scientists that are more interested in the novel and unique effects than the applications are certain to still use the word to describe their research, even if nano-scale physics/chemistry would be a better term.