In the forefront of nanotechnology development, NASA´s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has acquired one of the world´s finest electron beam lithography systems, one that will allow researchers to work on the sub-molecular scale. For NASA, this means breakthroughs in miniaturization that could lead to significant reductions in mass and cost of spacecraft to look for traces of life on distant planets. For researchers, it means access to one of only three such systems in the world, and the only one in the public sector devoted to pure research for building the nano-scale devices of the future. Photo credit: NASA

Micheál Martin TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment said in Dublin today that nanotechnology promises to deliver materials and systems whose structures and components exhibit novel and significantly improved physical, chemical or biological properties due to their small size. Nanotechnology also promises to deliver huge benefits for socio-economic development and its use is accelerating.

Internationally, government spending on nanotechnology is growing and a prediction made in the USA in 2000 that one trillion dollars in products worldwide would be affected by nanotechnology in 2015 has now been brought forward by five years to 2010……..only 4 years away. It is therefore almost self-evident that nanotechnology has a large employment potential for well educated personnel and opportunities for new high tech start-ups.  Ireland must position itself strategically on that trajectory, the Minister said.

Ireland is seeking to exploit the potential of nanosciences and nanotechnologies to the optimal level. In making investment decisions in this area in the future it is important that we do so on the basis of an assessment for safe, sustainable, responsible and socially acceptable development of nanotechnologies.