Lucent Technologies is developing a 100-nanometer chip. Alton Clark, a researcher at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., uses a beam of electrons to write 20-nanometer patterns on a computer chip. Hewlett-Packard, the Palo Alto, Calif., computer maker, devotes half of its research budget to nanotechnology. One product is a wire only a dozen atoms thick. But the full impact of nanotechnology will be greater than just computer chips, because it applies to many more fields than electronics, the federal report says.
Nanotechnology has the potential to change the nature of almost every human-made object.
Theoretically, a tankful could last 2,000 miles. Colo. In medicine, enthusiasts foresee applications to regenerate bone, skin and other tissue, to detect cancer at its earliest stages and to deliver drugs precisely to a target cell.