The Continuing Economic Potential of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is an emerging technology that already has had commercial impact and potentially could revolutionize manufacturing and industry ecosystems. Drawing on interviews with company representatives, and discussions with nanotechnology scientists and engineers as well as secondary data, this article reviews the history of scientific developments, patents, products, company activities,nanotech business models, government resources, nanotechnology infrastructure and ethical, legal, social and educational dimensions of the nanotechnology platform to illustrate opportunities and challenges of nanotechnology commercialization. The continuing growth of nanotechnology enabled businesses and products and pace of technological development make observers increasingly convinced that nanotechnology will have a significant impact on society, business, and economic growth.

Applications of nanotechnology · Business · Commercialization · Engineering ethics · Government (linguistics) · Impact of nanotechnology · Nanotechnology · Pace · Physics · Societal impact of nanotechnology · Engineering · Marketing · Materials Science · Nanotechnology research and applications