What is a nanometer?
One-billionth of a meter. For comparison purposes, consider that the width of human hair is approximately 80,000 nanometers. A nanometer-sized particle also is smaller than a living cell and can be seen only with the most powerful microscopes available today.
How much money is the U.S. government spending on nanotechnology?
Federal funding for nanotechnology R&D has increased substantially since inception of the NNI, from $464 million in 2001 to an estimated $1,081 million in 2005. The 2006 budget request that President Bush has sent to Congress calls for a total NNI budget of $1,054 million. Read more about the 2006 budget request.
How does this spending compare to other countries?
The United States is not the only country to recognize the tremendous economic potential of nanotechnology. While difficult to measure accurately, some have estimated that worldwide government funding has increased to about five times what it was in 1997, exceeding $2 billion in 2002. Asian countries, including Japan, China and Korea, as well as several European countries, have made leadership in nanotechnology national priorities.
Why fund nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology has the potential to profoundly change our economy and to improve our standard of living, in a manner not unlike the impact made by advances over the past two decades by information technology. While commercial products are starting to come to market, some of the major applications for nanotechnology are five to ten years out. Private investors look for shorter-term returns on investment, more in the range of one to three years. Consequently, government support for basic research and development in its early stages is required in order to realize nanotechnology’s full potential and to maintain a competitive position in the worldwide nanotechnology marketplace.

Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale.At the nanoscale, the physical, chemical, and biological properties of materials differ in fundamental and valuable ways from the properties of individual atoms and molecules or bulk matter. Nanotechnology R&D is directed toward understanding and creating improved materials, devices, and systems that exploit these new properties. One area of nanotechnology R&D is medicine. Medical researchers work atthe micro- and nano-scales to develop new drug delivery methods, therapeutics and pharmaceuticals. For a bit of perspective, the diameter of DNA, our genetic material, is in the 2.5 nanometer range, while red blood cells are approximately 2.5 micrometers. Additional information about is available from the National Institutes of Health.
A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter; a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. See for a comparative view of the sizes of commonly known items and nanoscale particles.

The transition of nanotechnology research into manufactured products is limited today, but some products moved relatively quickly to the marketplace and already are having significant impact. For example, a new form of carbon, —the nanotube—was discovered by in 1991. In 1995, it was recognized that carbon nanotubes were excellent sources of field-emitted electrons. By 2000, the “jumbotron lamp,” a nanotube-based light source that uses these field-emitted electrons to bombard a phosphor, was available as a commercial product. (Jumbotron lamps light many athletic stadiums today.) By contrast, the period of time between the modeling of the semiconducting property of germanium in 1931 and the first commercial product (the transistor radio) was 23 years. The discovery of another nanoscale carbon form, C60, the fullerene (also called the buckyball) brought the in 1996 to Robert F. Curl Jr., Sir Harold W. Kroto, and Richard E. Smalley. It also started an avalanche of research into not only the novel characteristics of C60, but also other nanoscale materials.Nanoscale science was enabled by advances in microscopy, most notably the electron, scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopes, among others. The honored three of the inventors of the electron and scanning tunnel microscopes, Ernst Ruska, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer.

NNI News Update
The NNI is now posting news media coverage of nanotechnology. You can also sign up for regular e-mail notification of new postings.
$5 Million Awarded to Study Health and Environmental Effects of Nanotechnology
EPA has awarded 14 grants totaling $5 million to universities to investigate potential health and environmental effects of manufactured nanomaterials. The nanotechnology grants were awarded through EPA's Science to Achieve Results (STAR) research grants program in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
To date, EPA has funded 65 grants for more than $22 million related to the environmental applications and/or implications of manufactured nanomaterials. In addition, EPA has awarded about $2.5 million for nanotechnology research to small businesses through its Small Business Innovation Research program.
For more information on the nanotechnology STAR grants

Cheap Medication

Defense Nanotechnology Research and Development Programs Report
Scientific breakthroughs and advances in the last few years demonstrate the potential for nanotechnology to impact key areas of the military: chemical and biological warfare defense; reduction in weight of war fighting equipment; high performance materials for platforms and weapons; high performance information technology; energy and energetic materials; and uninhabited vehicles and miniature satellites.

Advances in instrumentation and metrology have enabled two decades of remarkable nanoscience and nanotechnology research. However, the resolution, accuracy, and capability of currently available instruments and tools are being stretched to the limit by the demands of researchers and are not expected to meet many of the needs posed by those seeking to incorporate nanotechnology into commercial products and manufacturing processes. To meet some requirements, revolutionary rather than evolutionary advances will be needed.
The National Nanotechnology Initiative's (NNI) latest report, Instrumentation and Metrology for Nanotechnology, identifies and highlights research needs in five priority areas for nanotechnology-related instrumentation and metrology and includes a discussion of crosscutting computational science issues and challenges. The priority areas are:
Nanocharacterization
Nanomechanics
Nanoelectronics, nanomagnetics, and nanophotonics
Nanofabrication
Nanomanufacturing
Instrumentation and metrology are vital components to applications from electronics to medicine and crosscut all the NNI areas of research and application. This report is one of a series of reports resulting from topical workshops held by the Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Technology through the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO).

Researchers Engineer Nanomaterials for Safer, Effective Use
Working with nanomaterials to make them safe for use is the focus of research funded by NNI agencies. Three recent articles spotlighted significant findings by laboratories conducting basic research.
Scientists at the DOE-supported Molecular Foundry at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Berkeley, California, have coated carbon nanotubes with mucin-mimic polymers. These polymers have been found to be nontoxic to cells, potentially allowing the use of carbon nanototubes for medical diagnostics and treatments.
In other research from Berkeley Lab, nano-sized florescent probes coated with quantum dots have been found to affect only 0.2 percent of the human genome, resulting in minimal impact to cells. This would give biologists a clear view of processes spanning several hours or days, such as DNA replication, genomic alterations, and cell cycle control.
Semiconductor light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have great potential for biomedical imaging, but directing LED brightness is crucial. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have found a way to make LEDs more than seven times brighter by etching nanoscale grooves in a surrounding cavity to guide scattered light in one direction. While LEDs typically emit 2 percent of the light in a desired direction, this technique would boost useful LED emissions to about 41 percent.

FDA Forms Internal Nanotechnology Task Force
August 9, 2006. Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D., announced the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is forming a new task force to determine regulatory approaches to encourage the continued development of innovative, safe, and effective FDA-regulated products that use nanotechnology materials.
The task force will identify and recommend ways to address any knowledge or policy gaps that exist so as to better enable the agency to evaluate possible adverse health effects from FDA-regulated products that use nanotechnology materials. Product-specific, nanotechnology-related issues will be addressed on an ongoing basis

July 19, 2006. The National Nanotechnology Initiative Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report on the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) was released by the Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Technology. The report is a supplement to the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2007.
This report, Research and Development Leading to a Revolution in Technology and Industry, provides information on the collaborations and work in nanotechnology of the 25 participating Federal agencies. These agencies are maximizing individual and joint investments by participating in the NNI collaboration, now in its sixth year.