NANOSCIENCE ADVANCES IN THE UK IN SUPPORT OF NANOTECHNOLOGY

Abstract

There is little doubt that nanotechnology will revolutionise peoples' approaches to areas as diverse as the structure of materials, production engineering, biotechnology and medicine. Currently there are a number of companies that are exploiting micro- and nanotechnology, mainly using a top–down approach, i.e., through miniaturisation. As new products are created from the new technologies there must be methods, developing in parallel, for ensuring product reliability and quality assurance. It is asserted that this can only be achieved through the development of a metrology infrastructure. This paper will describe some of the advances that have been made in the UK in developing such an infrastructure.