The first person to talk about the concepts that we know today as “nanotechnology” was Richard Feynman, at his famous lecture, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, in December 1959. However, it would be almost 20 years before any nanotechnology devices came into production. In 1974, Norio Taniguchi of the Tokyo Science University first defined the term “nanotechnology”, and in the 1980s, Taniguchi’s work was much explored by Dr. Kim Eric Drexler, who wrote two books that are well known in the field: “Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology” and “Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation”. Drexler’s research gave the term “nanotechnology” the meaning it still has today. In 2000, the United States government set up the United States National Nanotechnology Initiative to coordinate nanotechnology research and development. In the UK, the leading authority in this field is the Institute of Nanotechnology, which was founded in 1997 and focuses on educating and training others in nanotechnology applications. Today, there are many companies involved with nanotechnology, in various different industries. In the electronics industry, Intel is working on circuits with nano-sized features and Kodak is developing LED displays that use nanotechnology. In the food industry, a company called Aqua Nova is researching ways of using nanoparticles to deliver vitamins and other nutrients in food and drink without changing the flavour. Even the sports industry has people working on harnessing nanotechnology to improve sporting equipment. Wilson is developing racquet frames that contain nanoparticles to improve the strength and stability, and NanoDynamics is working on new golf balls which will be easier to hit further. As this is still a fairly young area of technology, expect to witness huge leaps in science over the coming years, most likely made by companies in the computing industry, where nanotechnology is expected to make the biggest difference.

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