The Fall (October-December) 2001 issue of Interface, a technical trade publication of the Electrochemical Society, is devoted to the theme of "Smaller is better: emerging nanoscience". [Note: all of the following links lead to Adobe Acrobat PDF files, not web pages.]
The issue is introduced by a piece by guest editor Joseph T. Hupp ("Emerging Nanoscience and Functional Artificial Nanoarchitectures"), a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University and a researcher at Northwesternís Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly. Calling nanoscience and nanotechnology vibrant areas of research and development, Hupp writes, "The excitement, and the private and public investment to back it, comes from nothing less than the promise of revolutionary advances in medicine, communications, and other areas of contemporary technology." He also notes that ìNanotechnology becomes viable, of course, only when desired nanoscale objects can be intentionally and reproducibly made,î and goes on to describe "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to nanotech, clearly favoring the latter: ìNew materials and new architectures — devised in a bottom-up, molecular fashion — can be engines for the invention of new and better nanoscience and the development of new and better nanotechnology."
The issue contains three technical articles that describe nanostructured materials and functions:
- Assembly of Metal Nanoparticle Arrays Using Molecular Bridges, by D. Feldheim
- Functional Nanostructured Molecular Materials, by J. T. Hupp and S. T. Nguyen
- Selectively Permeable Dendrimers as Molecular Gates, by G. P. Perez and R. M. Crooks
