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Reprinted with permission from Foresight Update 20
(foresight@cup.portal.com):
Dr. Jack Gibbons is the Director of the Office of Science
& Technology Policy, which coordinates science and
technology policy throughout government. The following is an
excerpt of his address to the National Conference on
Manufacturing Needs of US Industry, held at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology.
Nanoscience has become an engineering practice. Based
on recent theoretical and experimental advances in
nanoscience and nanotechnology, precise atomic and
molecular control in the synthesis of solid-state
three-dimensional nanostructures is now possible. The
volume of such structures is about a billionth that of
structures on the micron scale.
The next step is the emergence of nanotechnology. The
stage is being set, I believe, for actual manufacture of
a wide variety and range of custom-made products based on
the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules
during the manufacturing process. The ability to
synthesize devices such as molecular wires, resistors,
diodes, and photosynthesis elements to be inserted in
nanoscale machines is now emerging from fundamental
nanoscience. Already the use of optical materials
assembled at the molecular level has revolutionized
response time, energy losses, and transport efficiency in
nanoscale materials.
Next, molecular manufacturing for mass production of
miniature switches or valves or motors or accelerometers,
all at affordable prices, is a genuine possibility in the
not so distant future. This new technology could fuel a
powerful economic engine providing new sources of jobs
and wealth and technology spillovers.
Further fundamental understanding of basic physical
phenomena at the quantum level will be needed to
understand and reach these kinds of technological
opportunities. Some of the areas in which knowledge must
be deepened are superlattices and multiquantum wells,
localization effects of electron and light waves, flux
patterns and their pinning, and dynamics in
superconductors, as well as further quantum mechanical
analysis of nanostructured systems. This basic scientific
understanding will find a very broad range of
technological applications, from energy storage and
generation, to magnetic storage and recording, to
supercomputers. To an ex-physicist like me, these
prospects for scientific exploration are exhilarating,
and our new understanding of a complex symbiotic relation
between science and technology - rather than a simple
hand-off - makes the prospects still even more exciting.
But my post-physics years of starting with new
high-technology companies beyond physics and then doing
policy work at the Office of Technology Assessment, and
my present deep immersion in policy at the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy, remind me that
the reduction of leading-edge technologies to practice is
a process which, as you so full well know, can be risky
and arduous. It's a long, long way from invention to
profitable production.
Cooperative efforts by government and industry to advance
technology can help fill that gap. One of this
Administration's top priorities is to form closer working
partnerships with industry, as well as with universities,
state and local governments, and workers, to strengthen
America's industrial competitiveness and create jobs.
From Foresight
Update 20, a newsletter on nanotechnology published
by the Foresight Institute, PO Box 61058, Palo Alto, CA
94306, USA; foresight@foresight.org.
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