The Origins and the Making of Nanotechnologies - Molecular Computing: Origins and Promises - page 20

Table 1.1 Funding of the US agencies under the program “National Nanotechnology Initiative”
Agency 2001 2002 2003 2006 2007

National Science Foundation 150 199 221 344 373

Department of Defense 123 180 201 436 345

Department of Energy 88 91 139 207 258

Department of Justice 1.4 1.4 1.4 1 1

Department of Transportation 0 2 2

Environmental Protection Agency 5 5 5 5 9

NASA 22 46 51 50 25

National Institutes of Health 40 41 43 175 173

National Institute of Standards and Technology 33 38 44 76 86

Department of Agriculture 1.5 1.5 2.5 2 2

Total 464 604 710 1301 1277

The allocation of funding for these agencies is shown in Table 1.1 . In compar-
ison with 2000 ($270 million), in 2001 it has more than doubled, with further
significant growth in subsequent years.
A major achievement of the developed program was the plan to establish an
infrastructure for nanotechnological research, discussed in detail in Appendix 1.
The plan provided for:

- Creating networks of shared research facilities equipped with state-of-the-art
instruments in order to strengthen the capacity of various research teams and
greatly facilitate their work
- Support for infrastructure development, including metrology, instrumentation,
modeling, and simulation
- Addressing ethical, legal, and social implication and promoting workforce
education and training efforts in order to attract skilled workers to this new
and promising area

Table 1.2 gives an overview of the funding allocated in 2001 for various sections
of Annex 1 of the Nanotechnology Initiative.
Appendix 2 to the “National Nanotechnology Initiative” lists nanotechnological
devices developed over the past several years. The list includes magnetoresistance
materials for high-density information storage, nanostructured catalysts, systems
for drug delivery via the human blood circulatory system, metal-polymer compo-
sites, bio-detection of anthrax, water desalination, and random access storage based
on rotaxane molecules.
The “National Nanotechnology Initiative” was approved by the US Congress in
2001, triggering a significant growth in spending on nanotechnological research and
engineering (see Table 1.2 ). In 2006 it more than doubled compared to 2000.
Moreover, the program stimulated similar developments in all industrialized coun-
tries. The volume of research carried out in 2002 and its growth in 2003 are shown in
Fig. 1.17 . It is worth noting that the growth of research in the field of nanotechnology
is correlated with the pace of technological development in respective countries.