February 2004

10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World

Continued from page 3

By Technology Review

PEIDONG YANG
Nanowires

Few emerging technologies have offered as much promise as nanotechnology, touted as the means of keeping the decades-long electronics shrinkfest in full sprint and transfiguring disciplines from power production to medical diagnostics. Companies from Samsung Electronics to Wilson Sporting Goods have invested in nanotech, and nearly every major university boasts a nanotechnology initiative. Red hot, even within this R&D frenzy, are the researchers learning to make the nanoscale wires that could be key elements in many working nanodevices.

"This effort is critical for the success of the whole [enterprise of] nanoscale science and technology," says nanowire pioneer Peidong Yang of the University of California, Berkeley. Yang has made exceptional progress in fine-tuning the properties of nanowires. Compared to other nanostructures, "nanowires will be much more versatile, because we can achieve so many different properties just by varying the composition," says Charles Lieber, a Harvard University chemist who has also been propelling nanowire development.