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The Year in Nanotech

Nano Power

Nanowires and carbon nanotubes are proving valuable for generating and storing energy. Researchers have shown that nanowires can convert vibrations into electricity. (See "Nanogenerator Fueled by Vibrations" and "A New Nanogenerator.") Other nanowires can generate power from light. (See "Tiny Solar Cells.") Carbon nanotubes could be useful for extracting more power from cheap solar-cell materials. (See "Cheap Nano Solar Cells.")

Nanotechnology could also greatly improve batteries. MIT researchers made fibers out of viruses coated with functional materials. The fibers could lead to textiles that collect energy from the sun, convert it into electricity, and store it until it's needed. (See "Virus-Built Electronics.") At the end of the year, Stanford researchers published research showing that silicon nanowires can significantly increase the storage capacity of battery electrodes.

Making Objects Invisible

Theorists have predicted a new class of materials that could render objects invisible. The materials work because they interact with light in unusual ways. Now a number of researchers are beginning to put those theories into practice, making rudimentary invisibility cloaks by controlling the micro- and nanostructure of materials. In addition to making things disappear, such materials could be useful for patterning tiny features for computer chips or for novel antennae for communications. (See "Invisible Revolution," "Superlenses and Smaller Computer Chips," "How to Make an Object Invisible," and "Invisibility Made Easier.")


Materials That Stick to Nothing--or Anything

Teflon pans are easy to clean. But a new super self-cleaning material actually causes oil to bounce off. (See "No More Thumbprints.") Another material--this one transparent--could be used to keep windows fog and oil free. (See "Self-Cleaning, Fog-Free Windows.")

Other researchers are developing supersticky materials. They have made structures out of carbon nanotubes that are like the structures on geckos' feet that allow the lizards to climb walls. They've also made glues similar to the proteins that allow mussels to stick to nearly anything, even underwater. (See "Climbing Walls with Nanotubes," "Nanoglue Sticks Underwater," and "Glue That Sticks to Nearly Everything.")


Flexible Electronics Coming to Market

Electronics patterned on flexible substrates that could be used for roll-up displays have previously been demonstrated in the lab. Now products are on the way. In February we described the plans of two companies to manufacture flexible electronics. (See "Plastic Electronics Head for Market.") One of the companies has now actually started production on a flexible-display device.

Meanwhile, researchers are developing methods for making flexible electronics with higher performance. (See "Printing Cheap Chips" and "Expandable Silicon.")


Tiny Memory

Novel approaches to storing data could lead to memory chips as much as a hundred times more compact than today's devices. These include materials that change structure (see "Novel Nanowires for Faster Memory") and ones that grow atoms-thick wires (see "Terabyte Storage for Cell Phones") in response to tiny electronic signals. Researchers at IBM are developing memory chips that exploit newly understood physical mechanisms to provide a cheap and fast alternative to hard drives and flash memory. (See "IBM Attempts to Reinvent Memory.")

http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/19983/

Priming The Pump Nanotechnology Biotechnology

With the pump thus primed, private enterprise rushed in, and in 2000 biotech boomed. Investors pumped billions into genomics-related companies like Celera Genomics (nyse: CRA - news - people ), Incyte Genomics (nasdaq: INCY - news - people ), Human Genome Sciences (nasdaq: HGSI - news - people ), Affymetrix (nasdaq: AFFX - news - people ) and CuraGen (nasdaq: CRGN - news - people ). Their zooming stocks multiplied, creating tens of billions of dollars in paper wealth.

All this suggests the way the nanotech pattern will develop. As Mark Guyer, director of the Human Genome Project's division of extramural research, points out, one company reaped the lion's share of the government's capital flows: Foster City, Calif., tools merchant Applied Biosystems (nyse: ABI - news - people ). It was the primary supplier of the high-speed DNA sequencers needed for genome decoding

"As a ballpark estimate of the total money the National Genome Research Institute spent, my guess is that 5% to 10% went directly to Applied Biosystems for instrumentation purchases," says Guyer.

Genome research drove Applied Biosystems' sales from $180 million in 1993 to $1.6 billion in fiscal years 2001 and 2002. Government-funded work is still a significant piece of ABI's business, consisting of roughly 50% of sales. Founded in 1981, ABI went public just two years later and was acquired in 1993 by Perkin Elmer.

Recognizing that ABI's 3700 DNA sequencer could dramatically pare the time necessary to sequence the genome, ABI's parent Applera formed Celera Genomics in 1998. Rather than wait for the publicly financed Human Genome Project, Celera used 300 new ABI machines to rapidly sequence the human genome and compile a comprehensive database for subscription sales. The Human Genome Project responded by accelerating its own pace and by buying roughly 200 ABI machines.

ABI had in effect set off a Cold War arms race in which it was the only weapons dealer in town. It emerged as the dominant equipment supplier to the genomics industry.

This bodes well for nanotech instrumentation vendor Veeco Instruments (nasdaq: VECO - news - people ) and modeling and simulation software leader Accelrys, which uses large libraries to help design new materials. Both dominate valuable sectors of research infrastructure for nanotech in the first few innings of the NNI build-out.

The NNI differs from the Human Genome Project because there is no single technology or common goal, like the genome project's race to sequence the genome. The NNI is essentially financing development of the basic nano-building blocks and instrumentation methodologies as the end applications are being determined.

This will require plenty of the kind of tools that Veeco and Accelyrs provide. In the Human Genome Project, companies supplying the necessary testing reagents, like Amersham (nyse: AHM - news - people ) and Invitrogen (nasdaq: IVGN - news - people ), also prospered. Following this pattern, I have no doubt that the mass producers of carbon nanotubes and other nano-building blocks--large chemicals players like Japan's Mitsubishi and Mitsui--will ultimately register considerable sales. The one problem is that margins will most likely shrink as a result of commodity pricing, so whether suppliers will be able to make a healthy profit is another question.

If history is any guide, Veeco and Accelrys will lead in the early stages, but they will need to change as nanotech comes of age. The infrastructure build will not last forever.

In biotech, ABI has tried to mitigate this risk by diversifying its revenue stream to include chemical reagent and array sales. Ultimately, the market shifts value from the means to the end. Those able to use the tools to create new products and devices are valued at a premium, while instrumentation companies' growth levels off. One reason Applera formed Celera to sell genomic information was out of the concern that the instrument business could be marginalized in the long term.

As the initial boom in the tools market crests, we will keep readers informed. Value will then accrue to widespread nanotech applications in biotechnology and IT devices. But that is some time away.

http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/10/1010soapbox_2.html

Nanotechnology Initiative's Origins

The NNI finds its origins in grassroots efforts by program managers at agencies like the National Science Foundation in the mid-1990s. Tom Kalil, former deputy assistant to President President Clinton for technology and economic policy and the administration's NNI point person, was one of the initiative's most influential advocates.

"Long term, nanotech can be as significant as the steam engine, the transistor and the Internet," says Kalil. "There is a critical role for government in areas of science and technology that are risky, long term and initially difficult to justify to shareholders."

Kalil said White House staff thought a nanotechnology initiative was a good idea for a number of reasons, including balancing the growing funding disparity between life sciences and physical sciences, training the next generation of U.S. scientists and taking an international lead in a transformative technology.

In January 2001 President Clinton introduced the NNI in a speech on technology at Caltech (the same place where Richard Feynman planted the seeds for nanotech 41 years earlier) and then mentioned it in his State of the Union address. But this was a nonpartisan venture: One of the initiative's backers was Newt Gingrich, who was Republican speaker of the House of Representatives at the time. Gingrich is now co-chairman of the NanoBusiness Alliance, which I co-founded, and he is an avid proponent for increased funding of basic scientific research.

From his car phone in D.C., Gingrich told me, "Those countries that master the process of nanoscale manufacturing and engineering will have a huge job boom over the next 20 years, just like aviation and computing companies in the last 40 years, and just as railroad, steam engine and textile companies were decisive in the 19th century. Nanoscale science will give us not dozens, not scores, not hundreds, but thousands of new capabilities in biology, physics, chemistry and computing."

What has already transpired since Clinton's Caltech speech is astounding. The NNI will be the most significant U.S. government-funded science project since the Space Program. Federal nanotechnology research funding has surged nearly sixfold in the past six years, starting from $116 million in 1997. My good friend Mark Modzelewski, co-founder and director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, says that money is not the only reason the NNI is a success.

"Before the NNI was started, corporate CEOs were not talking about nanotech," he said. "The NNI woke everyone up. It's incredible that this once-obscure science is now the buzzword amongst the leaders of the free world."

Perhaps the most fitting blueprint for nanotechnology comes courtesy of the most recent government-funded boom: the Human Genome Project. The Department of Energy first started funding genome research in 1986, and the National Institutes of Health joined it to officially launch the Human Genome Project in 1990. The goal was to find the estimated 100,000 or more human genes (scientists later learned humans only have 30,000 to 35,000 genes) and determine the sequence of the 3 billion units of DNA. Estimated cost: $3 billion over 15 years. Understanding how human genes work is expected to lead to breakthroughs in treating and preventing disease.

With private companies helping accelerate progress, in 2001 the Human Genome Project announced it would accomplish its objectives two years early. Administrators have already published a working draft and estimate the sequence will be 100% complete by next April. Expenditures for the Human Genome Project as of 2002 total $3.2 billion, and now the ball is really rolling.

http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/10/1010soapbox.html

Decoding Future Nanotech Investment Success

Pattern recognition is a fancy name for learning from the past. Investors use pattern recognition all the time. So do business people, politicians and military strategists. When they see certain things happening, they remember that in the past similar patterns had certain consequences.

Thus when President President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld see a nasty dictator acquiring dangerous weapons, they remember what happened when the world failed to stop an earlier nasty dictator from rearming. Similarly, when the Nasdaq index doubled and redoubled in just a few years, accompanied by talk of new eras and disregard of conventional measurements, experienced investors drew the correct conclusion: A dangerous bubble was forming.

I see in nanotechnology early signs of a promising pattern. We know from past experience that government funding for science and technology eventually creates a pattern wherein new ventures spring up and some of them prosper. And the government funding is already in place for nanotechnology. This newsletter is dedicated to helping its readers profit from this developing pattern.

Just as Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funding fueled the growth of the Internet and the National Institutes of Health advanced the biotechnology industry, I anticipate that the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) will yield a similar commercialization path for nanotech. The government is, in effect, plowing the field wherein private enterprise will sow the seeds.

http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/10/1010soapbox.html