Nanotechnology

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GLOBAL INVESTOR FOCUS <strong>Nanotechnology</strong>—18 Arthur Vayloyan: The nanotech vision includes revolutionizing industries, such as health and medicine, chemicals, power and energy, transportation, electronics, agriculture, engineering and defense. Is the nanotech market going to explode? Hans-Joachim Güntherodt : If we remember how the transition from radio tubes to transistors or integrated circuits took place, what seems to be a revolution today, was evolutionary at the beginning. Fifty years ago, when the first steps were being taken with transistors, no one predicted today’s use in laptops, mobile phones or the Internet. Similar developments have to be considered for nanotech. Heinrich Rohrer: Nanotech is a term for a wide variety of processes, products, and solutions. Its ultimate goal is to perform electrical, mechanical, chemical, and thermal sensing, processing, and actuation with systems working on the nanometer scale. It will provide pervasive bridges between the virtual world of today’s pervasive data processing and the real world of action. An important aspect is also new materials with special properties due to distinct nanostructures. Therefore, it is not one technology, industry, or market – it embraces many. The transition will be evolutionary, and revolutionary. Just remember, it took 17 years to replace half of the radio tubes by transistors – an evolutionary transition. Microelectronics, however, brought the hightech revolution. Nanotech is neither about “filling particular gaps,” nor “the solution to all of today’s problems”; it is about the vast world in between. And, it will revolutionize many branches of industry and, even more importantly, create new ones. Arthur Vayloyan : In 2000, the US National Science Foundation published a report stating that market expectations could reach USD 1 trillion by 2015. What is your opinion on these projections? Rita Hofmann: It depends what is counted as the market. I would feel more comfortable with an estimate of 1 percent of goods in world trade to be related to nanotechnology. Hans-Joachim Güntherodt: It is too early to make statements on market expectations in the range of these high volumes. However, there are sufficient expectations that Swiss spin-offs, start-ups, and other companies will become interested in the field. Arthur Vayloyan: Will some trillion-dollar industries be made obsolete, or will the transition to nanotechnology be smooth? Rita Hofmann: Many big industries have their own nano programs. They will probably integrate this new technology into their current structures. Hans-Joachim Güntherodt: I believe the transition will be smooth and has to follow commercial laws. We can learn from the introduction of new technologies in the past. Well-established manufacturers of radio tubes focused on other businesses or else were made obsolete. Intel is now the new giant in this field. Heinrich Rohrer: Obsolete? Hardly. Let’s take the electron microscope as an example on a smaller scale. It boosted research, development, and the market of the then 300-year-old optical microscopy industry. On a larger scale, the power necessary to perform a calculation decreased by a trillion times over the past five decades, yet the electricity bill for computers and peripheries increased to about USD 1 trillion per year. Going from the microscale to the nanoscale is a natural continuation of miniaturization. For example, a tera-bit in a cell phone will open new opportunities for this market, rather than make the cell phone market obsolete. Adding nanochemical analyzers and synthesizers to transmit fragrance and scent in addition to words, pictures and whatever should boost the cell phone market even more. Other developments, however, might discontinue because many properties and functions change at the transition from condensed matter behavior to atomic and molecular properties. A change from solid state to molecular components will require novel processes and technologies and, therefore, a lot of courage by the industries involved. But, it will open new horizons.
GLOBAL INVESTOR FOCUS <strong>Nanotechnology</strong>—19 Rita Hofmann, Head of Research and Development, Ilford Group, Switzerland: “Nanoapplications will fill particular gaps, but they are not the solution to all of today’s problems.” Viola Vogel, Head of the Laboratory for Biologically Oriented Materials at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH: “We scientists have to play a far more active role to help society discriminate between science and fiction.” Maria Custer: What does the change “from solid state to molecular components” mean? Are there examples? Hans-Joachim Güntherodt: In the past, we observed the change from vacuum or radio tubes to transistors, later the field of solid-state integrated circuits was introduced. Today, lower dimensions in the micrometer range are state-of-the-art. Smaller dimensions are not accessible by lithographic processes or limited by physical laws. Therefore, in the future transistors might be replaced by molecular components. Heinrich Rohrer: Molecules are the smallest, nanometer-sized functional components. One objective of macromolecular chemistry is to synthesize molecules of increasingly complex functionality. In many nanotech applications, the electron or ion currents become so small that we have to count electrons and ions instead of measuring currents. Using molecules as counting components seems to be a natural approach, as nature uses them abundantly, for example, molecules as adjustable holes for transfer of single ions through cell walls. Dreaming of the distant future, molecules are envisaged to serve as basic building blocks for self-assembling increasingly complex functional units and systems. Arthur Vayloyan: Will large, well-established companies control the market or is there room for smaller companies and start-ups? Rita Hofmann: There is a market now for start-ups, primarily in the equipment and medical sector, and in cases where investments in very expensive equipment are not needed. However, most of the activity will be in traditional industries and with big industrial players that invest in nanotechnology. For example, digital manufacturing and manufacturing-on-demand use manipulation on a fine scale. It is my guess that every major chemical company, every electronics company and many manufacturing industries have nanotechnology programs. There are also start-up groups in traditional industry. Heinrich Rohrer: There are opportunities for new companies, and they will appear. Just look at the developments in the data processing industry since 1960, thanks to microelectronics. Hans-Joachim Güntherodt: Today, there are examples of activities for both alternatives. Several well-established companies, such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Hitachi, hold patents. Some startups are also already making profits. The start-ups in the field of scanning probe microscopy can all be linked to universities working in this field. Therefore, it is hard to speculate on who will control the market. Arthur Vayloyan: What are your views on nanotech programs in large companies compared with small start-ups coming from the academia? Rita Hofmann: Start-ups have the disadvantage of having to develop new products for markets that might not yet exist to assure their living. For example, commercializing a new industrial product in my industry can cost anywhere from CHF 4 million to 10 million. This covers only technical development, not investing in any infrastructure or manufacturing equipment for longer-term sustainability. If startups have this kind of money available to them, they have a chance. Start-up groups in large companies do not have access to external funding. Viola Vogel: Not all products derived from nanotechnology are targeting new markets. Many start-up companies in the US are targeting existing markets with new products. Hans-Joachim Güntherodt: I believe the topic of start-ups is linked to the academic environment. In large companies, the programs are much more focused on the extension of existing products towards the advantages of the nanoscale. Maria Custer: So, the expectation is that larger companies will be the first to successfully introduce nanotech products, and smaller companies with great ideas will most likely need to collaborate >
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Nanotechnology

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