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Small is beautiful.. and profitable,
too
Nanotechnology - the knowledge obtained from the study of
tiny particles - is likely to change almost every branch of
science and industry. Continental Europe now has a clutch of
vibrant and influential young companies..
WHILE the US leads the world in nanotechnology, it was in
fact in Europe that the first real breakthrough occurred.
Back in the early 1980s, Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rohrer,
two young scientists at IBM's Rueschlikon laboratory in Switzerland,
developed the technology of scanning tunnelling microscopes
(STM) - the eyes of the nanoworld - which for the first time
allowed scientists to view individual atoms on a surface.
The STM is to nanotechnology what the telescope was to astronomy.
For this achievement, the two Swiss scientists shared the
1986 Nobel Prize for physics, along with German scientist
Ernst Ruska, who designed the first electron microscope.
There are now around 20 small nanotech companies in Europe,
and two of the most promising are based in Switzerland.
Switzerland
- Xoliox
Germany
- Wltec, NanoPhotonics, NanoSensors
Finland
- Nanoway, Nanocomp
Ireland
- Nanomat
BLUFFER'S
GUIDES
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