Nanotechnology promises a brave new world; it is just a matter of sustaining interest while practical applications are developed.
In the Michael Chrichton potboiler Prey , a swarm of self-replicating microscopic robots escape from the laboratories of a company in Nevada, and, in a formulaic Jurassic Park style twist, turn on the masters who played God and brought them into being in the first place--humankind.
Critics who know a thing or two about nanotechnology--the science that promises to find a host of practical applications in products and elements too small for the eye to see--were furious. But, at the same time, it was impossible to deny that in the highly speculative nano-world of microscopic "assemblers" and "replicators" it is easy to see how it is possible to transform the latest technological buzzword into a threat to life as we know it.
The truth, as usual, is far more prosaic. Derived from the Greek word for "dwarf," "nano" is a metric prefix indicating a billionth part. In other words, a nanometer is one billionth of a meter, and that also happens to be the basic measure unit used by nanotechnology. It is a unit so small that around 2,000 of them measure the diameter of a red blood cell. And at that scale, everything changes. The kinds of limits we are used to working with suddenly cease to shackle us. Imagine a DVD that held 10,000 movies, for example, or medical robots that did repair work on the body from within on demand.
For local scientist Su Tsung-tsan, general director of the government's Nano Technology Research Center, however, while the nano-future may be the next revolution, practical applications for nanotechnology need not belong exclusively to the realm of science fiction.
"Do you know why a gecko can stay on a vertical surface without falling off?" she asks. The answer is not because of tiny suckers on its feet, but because of millions of microscopic hairs, a discovery that was made only recently.
And it is this kind of discovery that is likely to take nanotechnology from the pages of science fiction and into our daily lives. A gecko's hairs are "sticky" due to a form of molecular interaction known as der Waal's attractive force. Each of the hairs splays at its ends into thousands more hairs, and each of these has a spatula-like ending that interacts with flat surfaces at a molecular level. For a gecko that amounts to an attractive force that allows it to hang its entire body weight from a single toe without falling, if it must. For us, it could mean everything from a better breed of Velcro to tires that do not skid on icy roads--or even Spiderman-like feats on the walls of tall buildings.
A nano-technology breakthrough in duplicating the gecko's hair has not happened yet, but plenty of other tiny strides are being made toward a brave new future.
Here in Taiwan, Su Tsung-tsan's research center is backed by the government's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), which was founded in 1973 in Hsinchu. According to Su, advancements in microtechnology and the discovery of nano-theory have allowed R&D in nanotechnology to take off, a development that became apparent when the American government decided to invest national resources in the area in 2000.
The US move is now recognized as a milestone that has stimulated research work the world over. In Taiwan the government fell into line with the founding of its nanotech research center in 2002, the same year it started to carry out Challenge 2008, a six-year national development plan that includes nanotech R&D. In June 2003, the National Science Council (NSC), which is responsible for allocating resources and coordinating efforts between government agencies devoted to scientific research, decided to put the research in nanoscience under the National Science and Technology Program for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. A budget of NT$23 billion (US$676million) is earmarked for the project between 2002 and 2008.
Nanotechnology, which is sometimes described as the next industrial revolution, is rapidly becoming a higher -education buzzword, and Taiwan's first graduate school of nanotechnology was established in 2003 by National Chiao Tung University. Today, nanotech research centers have sprung up in more than 10 colleges and universities around the island. Aside from conducting research, the other major task for these centers is to cultivate the next generation of nanotech specialists.
But the ITRI center is at the heart of Taiwan's push to keep up with international nanotech developments.
"Thirty years ago, ITRI inaugurated our information technology programs and established Taiwan as one of the technology centers of the world," says Yang Jih-chang, formerly executive vice president of ITRI. "We are again at the threshold of a new campaign."
If all goes as planned, nanotechnology, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), could generate up to NT$300 billion (US$8.82 billion) for Taiwan by 2008. A non-profit organization with a staff of 6,000, ITRI's advantage lies in its long-term connection to industry, licensing 350 new technologies to over 500 companies and outputting some 1,000 patents a year, while carrying out research work in fields from biomedical to communications and optoelectronics technology. On the nanotech front, that translates into 700 researchers in seven laboratories and five research centers working in tandem with the best equipment in Taiwan.
It is a formula that Su says will make Taiwan an attractive proposition for partnerships with foreign countries. Indeed, she goes so far as to say that the level of applied research being carried out in Taiwan is such that international players may find themselves needing Taiwan.
"If they want their research results to be fully applicable and marketable, they should consider coming to work with us," she says. Some countries, it seems, are already hearing the call, as the ITRI's nanotechnology research center is working with research institutes from Canada, Germany, Holland, Japan, Russia, the Ukraine, and the US, including prestigious universities such as Harvard and MIT.
"The ability to combine basic research with industrial applications as quickly as possible is likely to emerge as Taiwan's strongest card," says NSC Minister Wu Maw-kuen.
Smaller countries should have smart strategies if they want to compete with strong nations, adds Shyu Jyuo-min, executive vice president of ITRI.
"With limited resources, it's impossible for Taiwan to follow in the steps of America and Japan and spend a lot of money on basic research," says Wu. "Taiwan should make the full use of other countries' advantages, such as their basic research and professional ability," adds Shyu.
According to Su Tsung-tsan, the US and Japan are competitive in terms of investment in nanotech research, with budgets of US$961 million and US$875 million respectively this year. In sharp contrast, Taiwan has only around US$87 million earmarked for the same period, which has led the NSC to concentrate more than 60 percent of the fund on the industrialization of nanotechnology, an effort now largely being carried out by the ITRI.
Basic research nevertheless continues apace in Taiwan. According to Wu, it provides an excellent opportunity to strengthen links between ITRI and institutions traditionally engaged in basic research such as Academia Sinica. And next year the NSC will provide financial aid exclusively for joint efforts between, say, researchers from ITRI and universities.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's patent applications have also been on the rise. Between 1990 and 1999, 131 nanotech-related patents from Taiwan were approved in the US. But between 2000 and 2003 that number soared to 244, putting Taiwan at No. 6 in terms of US-granted nanotech patents.
And sometimes Taiwan forges ahead, as Su Tsung-tsan says. Carbon nanocapsules, for example, were a Taiwanese innovation that have subsequently drawn some 20 industrial partners to work with the ITRI and develop applications, such as electrodes in lithium batteries and heat-dissipating coatings for electronic components.
Patents are patents, however; products are something else--and even nanotech proponents admit there is a long way to go before the field begins to match its increasingly hyped potential.
"We don't know where we're heading," says Shyu. "We've got a vision of the nanotech era, but a very limited understanding of what it might be."
What is known for now is that the practical applications are most likely in materials, machinery, electronics, and medicine. Except for some progress in the first category, scientists working on nanotech development often find themselves facing discussions that are still on the drawing board or prototypes that remain far from the assembly line.
Small surprise that many prospective investors are taking a wait-and-see attitude. "I'm worried," says Shyu, "that despite current enthusiasm about nanotechnology, people will start to lose interest when they don't see it generating immediate results."
With that in mind, in early July, thanks to the support of MOEA and ITRI, the Taiwan Nanotechnology Industrialization Promotion Association was established, under the direction of Shyu, pulling together nearly 100 businesses, including corporate giants in both high-tech and traditional industries. Shyu hopes the association will help sustain interest, noting that Taiwan's business community is not particularly farsighted, and that it is essential that the government maintain support as a core policy.
Among the association's tasks, says Shyu, is creating a sound and fair environment for potential players, pushing for rules and standards by which nano-products be identified and ranked. Meanwhile, a "nanomark" will be announced and labeled on products to avoid consumers being saddled with a market that is flooded with fake nano-merchandise.
Manpower shortage is another issue being addressed. According to the NSC, by 2010 there will be a shortage of around 4,000 professionals specializing in applied nanotech research. The NSC response has been to deal with the problem at its root by, for example, pushing for the publication of a series of books on nano-physics, nano-chemistry and nano-biology, targeting teachers and students in primary and secondary education. "In terms of nano-education for the next generation, Taiwan is playing a leading role in the world," Wu says.
In the meantime, research developments need to continue to be funneled to industry so as to sustain their vision of the new technology.
Indeed, given a cue, Taiwan's businesses can be quick to invest in nanotechnology. In 1999, the ITRI transferred a piece of nanotechnology to Coin Chemical Industrial Company, which in turn used it to develop a nano-enhanced separator that makes cell-phone batteries longer in life and smaller in size. By 2003, the company was already supplying around 10 percent of the world's battery separators.
In order to create more Coin Chemicals, Taiwan needs to stay abreast of the next technological revolution--a journey that has the potential to go beyond even the imagination of science fiction.