Read about the latest in nanotechnology for crime prevention, military and medical applications plus the kind of commitment and support Germany is giving its industry.

Welcome to Issue 2

Russell Cowburn, the subject of this month’s interview, talks about his new method of uniquely ‘fingerprinting’ goods and documents using laser technology to uniquely identify the natural surface features of goods and packaging. This is quirkily, but accurately, termed: ‘biometrics of dead things’. Russell is notable for winning the prestigious Degussa prize for innovation in nanotechnology in 2006, walking away with a cool £100,000 for another idea of his relating to advanced techniques for improving computer logic!

To continue the theme of crime, we have an article that examines how analysis of clues at the scene of crime can be speeded up, and also how nanomaterials technology can be used in the fight to clean up graffiti. Not a trivial advance – graffiti creates an environment where crime thrives, and is also hugely expensive to deal with.

Now, moving from what might be called petty crime, to acts of war. We know that nanotechnology has a power for good, it can also be used destructively. It is a sobering thought that one quarter to one third of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) funding is going to the Pentagon ($352 million of the total $1200 million nanotechnology budget in 2005). Much of this work is still in the fundamental research stage, studying nanoscale motors, nanotubes and molecular electronics. But there are also more sinister activities, for example, in the area of biological weapons and autonomous combat systems. Jürgen Altmann, an expert in this field, explores the military situation further, and issues a warning on the urgent need for international controls.

In this issue, we are also taking the first steps in exploring the benefits of carbon nanotubes, a material whose structure has only recently been deciphered. It possesses amazing electronic, thermal, and structural properties and offer new possibilities for creating nanoelectronic devices, circuits and computers of the future.

But carbon nanotubes not only promise breakthroughs in electronics, and for new materials with extraordinary properties of strength, toughness and even conductivity. but also for medicine – in drug delivery, gene therapy and sensor probes – to name but a few.

At the end of 2006, a telling new action plan for nanotechnology was unveiled by the German Government which set out the way the Government plans to promote the application of nanotechnology across a wide range of industry sectors, including car manufacturing, construction, textiles, ICT, life sciences, optical science and engineering, chemicals, energy and environmental technologies. The proposal is to spend £330m on nanotechnology research in the coming year, an increase of just over 6% on priority industry sectors including: car manufacturing, construction, textiles, ICT, life sciences, optical science and engineering, chemicals, and energy and environmental technologies. Germany clearly aims to be a world leader in industrial innovation based on nanoscience and nanotechnology.

As part of the commitment of NANO to providing information for the generalist reader, we have two articles which explore applications of nanotechnology in chemistry and medicine, and what nanotechnology offers these important sectors. In chemistry, the article focuses on how particle size affects properties, and 

explores the idea of how a multitude of materials with novel properties are possible. With regard to medicine, the wide range of potential applications of nanotechnology are touched on, each of which will be explored in more detail in subsequent issues. Watch this space!!