nanoscience and society - IAP/TU Wien

470 Nanoenabled Drugs
simulation tools, and design rules that are required for
any industrial electronic manufacturing process.
NanoMarkets, a leading advanced technology analysis
firm in the United States, forecasts developments
in the emergence of a large market for nanomemory
products. The market for such products is expected to
grow to $65.7 billion by 2011, with the main driver being
demand for high-performance, nonvolatile memory
for mobile communications and computing. Nanoengineered
display technology, such as roll-up displays using
plastic electronics and other platforms, are also areas
with predicted opportunities, and have attracted leading
electronic firms such as Xerox and Philips. Displays
have been a focal point of computer engineering in recent
years. Using carbon nanotubes to replace scanning
electron guns, manufacturers like Samsung are shrinking
these screens and reducing power consumption. It
is even possible that these screens will be small, bright,
and efficient enough for use in laptop computers.
Nanoelectronics is now coming of age, and it appears
to be the right time to develop these production tools. Up
to now, solid-state nanoelectronic devices largely have
been fabricated in III/V semiconductor compounds,
such as gallium arsenide and aluminum arsenide.
It is believed, however, that silicon nanoelectronics
would greatly contribute to the inexpensive mass manufacture
of nanoelectronic devices. Hence, as the result of
the industry's adoption of new materials and technology
platforms-such as spintronics, plastic electronics,
molecular electronics, nanotube/nanowire electronics,
and low- and high-k dielectric materials-a new demand
for novel manufacturing modes is now emerging.
As transistors shrink, leakage current problems occur
at the gate. This problem could potentially be fixed by
using high-k materials, such as hafnium dioxide, zirconium
dioxide, or titanium dioxide, as a replacement for
typically used low-k material, such as silicon dioxide, in
transistor dielectric gate.
In order to fulfill the promise of nanoelectronics, it
will be necessary to greatly refine both fabrication techniques
and architectural concepts to permit the useful
assembly of small, low-power computing structures that
contain trillions of nanoelectronic switching devices.
Research in nanoelectronics is important and rewarding,
and is vital for the community to encourage this
economically valuable line of research. While nanoelectronics
has challenges in its own right, it plays an important
role in the convergence with areas of materials
and applications. These will pose their own challenges
and opportunities for new products and processes.
See Also: Carbon Nanotubes; Electronics and Information
Technology; Nanomanufacturing; Nanomaterials.
Further Readings
Compano, R. "Trends in Nanoelectronics." Nanotechnology,
v.12/85 (2001).
Evertsen, J. "Nanoelectronics: Background Paper." Forfas
Annual Report (2007).
Goldhaber-Gordon, D. "Overview of Nanoelectronics
Devices:' Proceedings of the IEEE, v.85/521 (1997).
Ratner, Mark. Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the
Next Big Idea. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Van Rossum, M. "Prospects of Silicon Nanoelectronics."
Proceedings of the European Solid State Device Research,
Geneva 1997.
Nanoenabled Drugs
IIle C. Gebeshuber
Vienna University of Technology
Badariah Bais
Burhanuddin Y. Majlis
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
One of the greatest impacts of nanotechnology is taking
place in the context of drug delivery. Nanoenabled drugs
offer potential solutions to fundamental problems in
the pharmaceutical industry ranging from poor water
solubility of active agents (i.e., drugs or genes), toxicity
issues, low bioavailability or a lack of target specificity
(e.g., delivering the active to a specific "target" site). As
a result, active agents are delivered more efficaciously
while minimizing side effects, which lead to better patient
compliance. Numerous U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA)-approved nanoenabled drugs are
on the market and are already affecting medicine and
promise to alter the healthcare landscape. To date, numerous
nanoenabled drugs including luminescent
quantum dots, magnetic nanoparticles, gold nanoshells,
dendrimers, and block copolymer micelles have been
developed for drug delivery. However, as these products
move out of the laboratory and into the clinic, federal
agencies like the FDA and the U.S. Patent Office struggle