MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev for RIA Novosti) - Some people think nanotechnologies deal with robots. In fact, a nanometer is a unit of length in the metric system equal to one billionth of a meter and is used to measure things that are very small.
Atoms and molecules, the smallest components of everything around us, are measured in nanometers.
They are commonly used in nanotechnology, the building of extremely small machines, where quantum mechanics and photons play a key role.
A nanotechnologist once said that when you throw a stone into a pond, the impact creates waves that spread out across the surface. The mass of the stone is much smaller than the mass of water in the pond, yet it influences the behavior of the pond. The same mechanism works in nano-sized structures, which can govern the fundamental properties of materials without changing their chemical properties.
Nanotechnologies can be used to create "eternal" batteries, which will not need recharging, or a tiny capsule that could deliver a medicine directly to an affected organ or part of the human body, or materials with completely new optical, electric and magnetic properties.
Microchips are becoming smaller, but the traditional production methods are approaching a natural economic and technological limit, beyond which the size will not decrease substantially but the expense will increase exponentially. The list of promising nanoelectronic products includes memory, logic, passive optical components, autoemission devices, flat displays and light diodes.
Nanophotonics and nanobiotechnology are other promising areas.
Nanophotonics involves the production of high bandwidth, high speed and ultra-small optoelectronic components.
Nanobiotechnology is a rapidly advancing area of scientific and technological opportunity that applies the tools and processes of nano-microfabrication to build devices for studying biosystems.
In particular, it includes the creation of diverse diagnostic instruments comprising microscopic devices capable of "seeing" certain biological molecules or DNA spirals. These instruments will be invaluable for a fast, precise and correct diagnosis of complicated diseases. For example, I can imagine a nanochip that will use only one drop of blood to make a complete diagnosis.
The current nanotechnology leaders are the United States, Europe and Japan. Unfortunately, Russia is lagging seven to ten years behind, although Russian and foreign experts agree that theoretical studies carried out in this country's nanotechnologies industry are up to world standards, and some of them are even way ahead of their foreign counterparts.
"It is an area of activity in which the state is ready to invest on a large scale. The only question is that this work should be well organized and effective, yielding practical results," President Vladimir Putin said in his state of the nation address this year. "It is also extremely important to guarantee proper competition in the academic community."
Research subjects are among the most important issues, as it is very difficult to decide how much should be allocated for fundamental research and how much for applied studies. The task of fundamental research is to substantiate a technological idea and propose ways to implement it, while applied scientists work out the optimal technological processes. Without a proper balance between them, the process of creating a technology takes too long and becomes too expensive.
Another problem is that nanotechnology revolutions, unlike industrial revolutions, are super-secret processes and are therefore restricted to one nation in terms of their form and contents. Scientists working in this sphere cannot draw on the experience of their foreign colleagues; they will have to work alone.
At the same time, there is a multitude of research roads branching off the scientific highway, and a broad variety of goals, so that research and design projects underway at different stages of the innovation cycle with different goals in mind can overlap, but interdepartmental barriers will hinder the exchange of information and experience. Taken together, this requires budgetary allocations to be spread among many research projects in different scientific spheres.
Fundamental studies, which are undertaken with no particular goal in mind and are therefore quite expensive, should be brought together in a national program. They will produce new information, and, since allocations for fundamental research are limited, money should be channeled into relatively cheaper research that can increase the critical amount of knowledge.
The latter condition determines the size of allocations that can be considered reasonable for fundamental research.
As of now, the Russian government has invested about 150 billion rubles ($5.76 billion) in different nanotechnology studies, including weapons projects. Russia's Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said 12 billion rubles ($461 million) had been appropriated for the development of nanotechnologies in 2007, an incredible sum by Russian standards.
Although the Ministry of Education and Science said the sum actually equaled 11 billion rubles, this is still nearly five times more than the 2.5 billion rubles allocated for the purpose in 2006. This year's nanotechnologies budget in Russia is comparable to America's.
The process will be monitored by a special nanotechnologies corporation led by the Kurchatov Institute, which will be granted the status of a national laboratory. A target program for developing the infrastructure of the nanoindustry (including the Kurchatov Institute) until 2010 has been drafted and submitted to the government. It stipulates the provision of the latest research, technological and measuring equipment to the leading research and education centers.
The Kurchatov Institute will coordinate the distribution of money, which is a Herculean task, as funds and expensive equipment should be provided to the best labs and institutes. The ability to bring together scientists and technologies, and to create production lines for implementing scientific achievements will be viewed as a competitive advantage.
The world has taken notice of Russia as a young but promising nano-superpower. Foreign analysts advise those who want to invest in Russia to channel their money not into the oil and gas sector, but into nanotechnologies, which have a promising future.
Yury Zaitsev is an adviser at the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
