Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[MKT_entropy]

What IS nanotechnology? When did it start and what does it include? Any technology, new and old, dealing with structures in the nanometer range? Will any colloid do? A single protein molecule?

Nanowires, a few-atom-thick quantum well structures and quantum dots were being made in the late 70s-early 80s, including by yours truly, 'nanosized' ZnS and CdS colloids with funny spectra much earlier, so where is the demarcation line?

From my point of view, it's a voguish term coined mostly by newbies who were born during the hippie times and later, who simply do not know the history of their field too well and grappling for attention of the funding agencies, promising a new El Dorado... Sure, there are new developments and tricks, but no watershed event to discern the new era, just a gradual progress.

M_e