The Nanomanufacturing Summit, held in Boston recently, was largely what you would have expected — near-term bulk-tech approaches to nanostructured materials, some interesting research aimed at new electronics, and so forth. Notable, however, was a plenary talk by M. C. Roco, who appears to have changed his tune to the extent of predicting nanorobotics and “molecular nanosystems” (see slide 5) and “Hierarchical nanomanufacturing with atomic / molecular precision” (slide 29).
Is the “nanopants winter” nearly over, then? Don’t hold your breath, but we do see signs of a thaw…
Hat tip to Howard Lovy.
