ACS Adds Nanotech Division

Phase Shifter writes, " The Materials subdivision within the American Chemical Society's Industrial & Engineering Chemistry division has now become the Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology subdivision. This means that ACS members researching into nanotech now have their own forum for information exchange, where previously it was scattered among several different divisions. Hopefully we'll be seeing faster progress in the field as a result. "

Comments

This takes more than chemists

[Captn Pepe]

From the ACS page:

• carbon nanoscience, including fullerenes and carbon nanotubes
• molecular-scale electronic devices, including wires and components
• molecular self-assembly, with particular emphasis on organized structures and machines,
• quantum size effects, including electronic and photonic phenomena
• nanotechnologies, including lithographies, microscopies and manipulators
• crystal engineering, including detailed architectures for electronic and photonic applications
• engineering of nanoscale dots, films, and 3-dimensional structures
• molecular-scale biomedical engineering

Quite a breadth of fields represented here, and a list that illustrates an important point about nanotechnology -- by its very nature, you're combining a lot of areas of expertise. Right now, most of the work is arguably in the area of chemistry, but in the next few years you're going to have chemists, physicsts, mechanical/electrical/some new field? engineers, and even computer scientists working in the area. In the end, we're going to need to combine more people than just the physicsts.

Along these lines, I like what some universities are doing: check out Rice's Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and Cornell's National Nanofabrication Facility for examples of institutes that have been set up specifically to bring together the various disciplines needed to tackle this problem.

Oh, and a note to Technos -- as much money as even the military black budget has to throw around, we're nowhere near developing weapons-grade nanotech. If you want self-replicating weaponry, biological warfare remains your only "good" option.