ABSTRACT
Nanoengineering offers the very real promise of a veritable cornucopia of enabling new materials, devices, and products. Examples range from improved materials for everyday uses such as self-cleaning paints and bathroom surfaces and deicing surface treatments for aircraft and automobiles in northern climates to new forms of structural materials that might be stronger than steel yet lighter than Styrofoam. The technology may also enable the development of adaptive soft materials like foams and polymer composites that could enable fundamentally new sorts of products. For example, imagine computers in which a CPU the size of a sugar cube has vastly more computing power than all existing machines combined, or wallpapering a room using “paper” that acts as a very-largescreen television. Similarly, work is under way to produce very large mirrors from nanoengineered plastics so that huge, lightweight plastic mirrors can be launched into space and used to see nearly the beginning of time. Many major companies have recognized that this area of science and technology holds the key to new products, processes, technologies, and medicines, with multifaceted societal and economic benefits.
