Description
Nanotechnology, the 21st century’s cutting edge technology, seeks to discover, describe, and manipulate the unique properties of matter at the nanoscale to develop new capabilities with potential applications across all fields of science, engineering, technology, and medicine. Various potential applications of nanomaterials and nanotechnology have been touted in scientific and layman press for the promises of the ability of nanoscale technology to revolutionize life into a fiction that once was found only in books. Outside of enormous speculations and hype, current applications of nanomaterials and nanodevices that already impact global commerce are living proofs of the nanotechology revolution.
From its beginning since the late 20th century to its current status in the early 21st century, nanotechnology is continuing to show that it is an evolving technology that has influenced various areas of research and industry. It has shown its pivotal and encompassing role and impact on nearly all-industrial sectors. At the same time, nanotechnology and biotechnology have converged giving rise to various prospective biomedical applications. Moreover, unlike any other existing technology, the nanoscale nature of nanomaterials and nanodevices exhibits potential applications in the sub-cellular scales with near perfect accuracy in targeting cellular and tissue-specific clinical applications with maximum therapeutic effects and with minimal or no bad effects.
During the past decade, increase in awareness and understanding of the factors that govern growth and properties of nanomaterials gave rise to novel structures and functionalities that showed applications in electronic industry, biomedical field, computer information technology, and other fields. This brought a downpour of financial support from various governments worldwide. Projections of trillions of dollars’ worth of growth in the global nanotechnology market have led to a scenario guided by competition among the leading players lead by the US. There are currently a handful (in the hundreds) of nanomaterials that have reached commercial productions and applications. These include those that are used in medicine in the form of drug nanocarriers, imaging contrast agents, implants, and other applications. These nano-enabled products show advantages over their conventional counterparts.