Size Matters: Taiwanese Industry Gears up for the Nanotech Age

In a large HCG bathroom fixture plant in Pateh Township, Taoyuan County, a line of workers are spraying coatings onto toilet bowls. After a layer of traditional glaze is applied, the workers change nozzles, and with great care apply another pink layer of coating to both the inside and outside of the toilets. The toilets are then fired in a kiln at a temperature of 1200oC. Once these nano-toilets come out of the kiln, they can cost as much as NT$3000 more than an ordinary toilet. They've caused quite a storm in the bathroom fixtures industry.

Not far from HCG's plant, in a Coin Chemical Group specialty chemicals plant, after 40 years of hard work researchers have successfully developed a nanotech battery separator, which greatly raises the efficiency of electrolysis in batteries. This has earned Coin entry to a select group of only four companies worldwide that can make this kind of battery separator. Currently, Coin is both keeping the technology a guarded secret and also considering spinning off its nanotech division as a separately listed company.

For traditional industries, which are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet, nanotech provides opportunities for new products and methods of production-and even new industries. No wonder industry has been gripped by a rage for nanotechnology. There are nano-fibers, nano-refrigerators, nano-herbal-medicines, nano-cosmetics. . . . There are even food vendors-apparently confused by the fact that the Chinese character for rice ("mi") appears in the Chinese word for "nanotechnology"-selling "nano" boxed lunches.

Various kinds of nano fibers, which have either far infra-red wave thermal functions, or antiseptic, antibacterial and de-odorizing functions, have lifted morale in the textile industry. Everyone is looking for new appeals to stimulate buyers.

Little world, big mystery

In truth, the "mi" in nanotechnology is there because (for phonetic reasons) the same character is also used for "meter." In the metric system, a nanometer means a billionth of a meter. For comparison, a needle has a diameter of about 1 million nanometers and a single human hair a diameter of about 70,000 nanometers. Even a virus that can pass through the pores of many ceramic products has a diameter of 100 nanometers!

This kind of world-so small that it is hard even to imagine-used to have an air of impenetrable mystery. Its veil didn't gradually begin to be lifted until 1982, when two Swiss scientists at IBM invented the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), which allows scientists to view nanometric structures on a computer screen.

Nanotechnology, as one would expect, refers to technology on a nanometric scale, which now means anywhere from 1 to 100 nanometers. The development of this kind of technology has in fact been a natural process.

The third technological revolution, which has occurred since 1950, has been based on reducing semiconductor features to the micrometer scale. (One micrometer, or micron, equals 1000 nanometers.) On a small chip there can now be tens of thousands of transistors, meaning that computers are becoming smaller and smaller as they grow more and more powerful. This has resulted in the ascendance of the information age, which has totally revolutionized the nature of human life and work.

With the continuation of this miniaturization process, there have been greater technological advances in the last ten years. Take, for instance, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC), one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers. While the government is still deciding whether to allow it to build a plant in mainland China to make chips with 0.25 micron line widths, TSMC expects to begin mass-producing chips with line widths of 0.09 microns (equivalent to 90 nanometers) in Taiwan in June 2003, thus opening up the nanotech age for semiconductors.

With this transmission electron microscope (TEM), one can observe not only objects of nanometric scale but also the arrangement of atoms under their surface. Because TEMs only work in the dark, they are very difficult to operate.

Gold that doesn't glitter

Unlike the third wave of technology, nanotech (the fourth wave) will not revolve only around information technology. It will have a revolutionary impact on many other industries as well. Over the last 20 years scientists have discovered that materials behave differently at nanometric levels than they do in amounts visible to the naked eye. Just as the fundamental properties of a substance will change in a vacuum or at low temperatures, substances at nanometric sizes will undergo various physical and chemical changes. By singling out certain characteristics-such as strength or ductility-you can then go on to create countless products with new functions.

Take, for instance, gold. Once you reduce its thickness to 50 nanometers, light can easily pass through it, so that it no longer reflects light. Its color changes from gold to red, and it becomes an excellent material for pregnancy test kits. Once gold is manufactured as thin as 50 nanometers, it goes from being extremely stable to being extremely volatile, allowing it to be used in many different applications as a catalyst or activator. What's more, at nanometer sizes insulating materials may turn into good conductors, and brittle ones may become highly ductile, or they may react differently to heat or light. On the nanometric scale, substances behave in unforeseen ways.

Researchers have discovered that the behavior of nanometric substances varies considerably from predictions about them based on their physics and chemistry in the visible or "macroscopic" world. The nanometric characteristics of substances also differ greatly from their behavior at the even smaller "microscopic" (as used in this context) level of atoms. Currently scientists are working hard to perform comprehensive analysis, in the hope that they can soon establish a "mesoscopic" physics that correlates to nanometric levels.

When nanometric-grade skin-care products meet the skin's pores, they can't miss. Women no longer have to worry about their skin not absorbing skin-care products.

A new index of development

At a time when the theoretical foundations for nanotech are still shaky, global industry has nonetheless already heard all about it and is eagerly awaiting its products, which are being steadily released onto the market. Lee Chih-kung, a professor of applied mechanics at National Taiwan University, who is advising the Ministry of Education on how to develop nanotech talent, points out that nanotech combines the "technological" with the "academic." Industry and academia are egging each other on to develop nanotech, a situation that represents an exception in the history of technological development. As a result, it can be predicted that this fourth technological revolution will come fast and furious and will push onward with overwhelming momentum.

Looking toward the future, the big trends are already very clear. Simon Sze, an academician at the Academia Sinica and president of the National Nano-Device Laboratories (NNDL), points out that according to the one estimate, nanotech will dominate 22 of the world's 30 biggest industries by 2030, including the portable data communications equipment, personal computer and CPU industries, as well as the currently hot magnetic memory industry. Annual revenue will reach US$10 trillion. And various biotech-based industries will no doubt also be employing nanotech, since the width of DNA happens to be exactly one nanometer.

"Nanotech will drive the next generation of industrial development," says Sze. "Indices of infotech and nanotech penetration will become new indicators of a nation's economic competitiveness!"

Yang Jih-chang, executive vice president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), explains that it is estimated that by 2008 nanotech will account for more than NT$300 billion of Taiwan's economy, giving it a higher percentage of GNP in Taiwan than in Japan. And Lee Chih-kung displays even more confidence when he notes that nanotech largely relates to skills in production processes. Since Taiwan already leads the world in terms of semiconductor and DVD data storage production, when the nanotech age arrives, Taiwan's economy will only grow more competitive!

C₆₀-buckminsterfullerene or "buckyballs"-is the third pure carbon structure discovered after diamond and graphite. Because of its unique structure, it has myriad uses and has spurred a research craze in industry. Members of the recently established buckyball research alliance include the ITRI and several leading companies.

A genie's lamp

Nanotech shows tremendous potential, but currently it is still gathering momentum. According to estimates, it will take another five years before it will really start to ride high. Future applications will be in four basic areas: nanoelectronics (including information, communications, micro-engineering and computerized home appliances) nanomaterials, nanomedicine, and defense.

Among these, the fastest strides are being made with nanomaterials. Meanwhile nanoelectronics will take longer to get rolling, but will eventually have the biggest impact of all.

Simon Sze points out that ever since Intel's Gordon E. Moore postulated "Moore's Law" more than two decades ago, the information industry has been making the grade. Every three years the semiconductor industry has been able to reduce the size of circuits by 30% and increase the density of transistors by four times. A year ago, a laboratory at Stanford succeeded in manufacturing chips with line widths of 10 nanometers, a level approaching the limits of conventional physics. In order to break through these limitations and create smaller, more sensitive chips, the global information industry has been researching single-electron transistors, as well as the possibility of using carbon nanotubes with thicknesses of less than 30 nanometers to replace silicon.

Apart from the world of electronics, nanotech is having a revolutionary impact in the spheres of materials science, biotech and defense. Take, for instance, a soccer-ball-shaped nano-structure "C60" (a molecule of 60 carbon atoms), which is named "buckminsterfullerene" for its resemblance to Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes. It quickly binds with the HIV virus, both reducing its toxicity and blocking its spread. Hence, it is now regarded as the "new great hope" in AIDS research. The United States is also developing a nanotech coating that can absorb 99% of radar's electromagnetic waves. An airplane with such a coating would be able to avoid detection by radar.

When nanotech gets really hot, scientists will be able to create new materials by arranging particles and atoms at will. That bottom-up method of materials science will completely differ from today's "top-down" method of breaking substances down by cutting or grinding. Humanity will truly begin to assume the role of creator, as we arrange molecules into structures of our design. It will resemble Aladdin's lamp: When you want to eat fried chicken, you'll just call your nanorobot, which will, from the oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon molecules in air, create the type and flavor of chicken that you desire!

In order to make it easy for production line workers to distinguish between them and traditional glazes, the nano-glazes for nano-toilets are tinted red. Once they are baked, however, they return to their original colors. The nanotech red glaze is 20 times as expensive as traditional glaze.

Adding spice to traditional industries

That seemingly distant dream is in fact beginning to be realized right in front of our eyes. Currently industry in Taiwan is in the early stages of nanotech applications, for the most part just researching and developing various kinds of nanomaterials and products that make use of them. Most of the products are consumer goods. Nanotech represents a new road for traditional industries. It's no wonder that mainland Chinese academics have referred to it as "new spice for traditional industry."

Lin Jen-lien, program director of the Specialty Chemicals Research Program at the ITRI, points out that industry in Taiwan is extremely broad-based, with production at leading global standards achieved even by mid- and upstream materials manufacturers, such as manufacturers of additives, paints and coatings, as well as makers of composites such as plastics, elastomers and metals. Nanotech in Taiwan will build on this foundation, creating new generations of even better products by spreading materials at nanometric thicknesses in order to give products, as the case requires, better electrical conductivity, greater gas permeability or impermeability, or improved rigidity or ductility.

Take the "nano-toilets" being produced by HCG. Chen Shih-chieh, who works in R&D for HCG and is in charge of this product, explains that the company never planned on getting involved with nanotech. But because Taiwan is extremely hot and humid, bathroom fixtures here are prone to sticky and smelly mildew. For years, this has been a big problem. In order to protect against germs, HCG added silicon and aluminum to the glaze, but to little effect. Without any other options, Chen decided to try nanomaterials, which he had researched more than ten years previously when he earned a doctorate in Britain.

In HCG's nanotech coating, 70% is traditional ceramic glaze reduced to nanometric size. The remaining secret 30% is a mix of ten different substances. This "nano-coating" is 20 times as expensive as traditional glazes. But in terms of function, the nano-coating, applied in a thin layer above the traditional coating, is effective in filling the holes in the coating, which becomes so smooth that even a pencil won't leave a mark. Naturally germs and dust won't be able to settle there.

Said to possess the radiant, absorbent and resonant characteristics of far infra-red waves and to invigorate and help to promote blood circulation, this nanotech device is the newest thing in health care products. Yet you may want to consult with your physician before using it.

Nanotech for nanotech's sake?

Chen stresses that nanotechnology isn't something new, and that many firms wanting their products to become more sophisticated have long been heading in the nanometric direction without knowing it. For instance, if the particles of pigments become very thin, then they allow light to pass through, thus preventing the diffraction of light and giving the surface a higher quality look. As a result, the coatings used for high-speed film and its photo paper have long employed substances spread at nanometric levels. It's just that in the past these products weren't labelled "nanotech."

Lin Shih-liang is a senior manager at TECO Electric and Machinery. Three months ago the company began marketing "nano-refrigerators," which have made quite a splash in the marketplace. Lin warns that technology in itself isn't necessarily a selling point, and that industry has got to be focused on the end products, rather than on "developing nanotechnology for its own sake." "We've got to be aiming to create new special features in the end product, and we've got to be able to go quickly into mass production. Otherwise, the excellence of the original materials doesn't matter."

Lin points out that the "nano-refrigerator" actually employs just a few nanotech parts to improve its ability to keep food fresh. A few years ago on a trip to Japan, Lin discovered that the Japanese used far infrared ceramic containers to hold fish, which did an excellent job of keeping them fresh. After the ITRI introduced this technology into Taiwan, Teco started to develop its nano-refrigerators.

Theoretically, composite ceramic molecules laid at thicknesses of 10 to 30 nanometers will emit infrared waves at the most ideal wavelength for keeping food fresh. Currently, industry has attained levels of 70-90 nanometers. The refrigerators employ a coating of this material on aluminum trays to keep fish fresh, and also on a carpet-like material to line the compartments for fruit and vegetables. They are quite effective.

The aluminum plate in the hands of Lin Shih-liang, a senior manager at TECO Electric & Machinery, has a nano-coating that emits far infra-red waves that help to keep food fresh.

Nano a nano

In truth, before much noise was being made about nanotech, infrared products had already been hot for some time. Recently, infrared underwear, which sells for as much as NT$10,000, became a hot item, due to a scandal involving a news anchor who obtained some garments from their manufacturer but refused to pay for them. When worn, this underwear is said to take heat and turn it into "birth rays," so that cells come to life and the whole body is invigorated. Currently, Far Eastern Textile, Formosa Tafffeta and other companies are all pursuing this application.

Aside from developing infrared fibers, in the middle of 2001 Formosa Taffeta also began marketing antibacterial, deodorizing fibers. These were partially made of "photocatalytic" nanometric titanium dioxide.

Chen Young-chin, director of R&D at Formosa Taffeta, who won a national award for excellence in engineering, explains that titanium dioxide was already widely used as a white pigment. Then researchers discovered that at nanometric levels, the substance took on wholly different characteristics and became an "ultraviolet light absorber" or "photocatalyst." When ultraviolet light is shone on it, it produces electricity, causing a positive electrical charge and sucking in the water vapor around it. It is a strong oxidizer, so it can break down microorganisms and malodorous organic compounds such as tobacco smoke. It was previously used in whitening creams, but it has since been employed in various nanotech products that clean the air or sanitize.

In nanotech applications, ultraviolet ceramics, photocatalysts, and various polymer composites have all caused quite a stir in industry. One of the prime movers and shakers behind this trend has been Lin Jen-lien, program director of the Specialty Chemicals Research Program at the ITRI. He points out that 200 years ago, when the steam engine had just been invented, craftsmen wondered what things steam power could be used to move. Now researchers are wondering what kinds of material used at nanometric levels will help make products better.

Various kinds of nano fibers, which have either far infra-red wave thermal functions, or antiseptic, antibacterial and de-odorizing functions, have lifted morale in the textile industry. Everyone is looking for new appeals to stimulate buyers.

Awaiting a host of applications

With regard to traditional industries adopting nanotech applications, Taiwan has some unique advantages: "Taiwan has many industries with fully developed down-, mid- and upstream segments," notes Yang Jih-chang. "There is a high density of factories here, and abundant and well established channels between industries."

Yang points out that nanometric materials are not products by themselves, and that after these materials are developed, there will need to be much discussion and exchange about what products they should be used in, how they should be integrated into the production processes, and how their effectiveness in products can be verified. Most of the factories related to nanotech are found in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli. This geographic clumping may result in greater efficiency and increase the pace of nanotech development.

Yet an honest assessment of Taiwan's prospects for developing nanotech must also point to areas of concern. The first potential bottleneck involves funding. Nanotech is expensive, both for basic research and for developing manufacturing techniques. A single nanometric microscope costs more than NT$10 million. Equipment that can analyze internal structures is even more shockingly expensive. Most companies simply cannot afford this equipment and must send out even products that they have developed themselves to the NNDL or university nanotechnology laboratories for testing. These labs all have waiting times of many days.

What's more, although the government has announced that it is going to invest more than NT$20 billion to develop nanotechnology, in the United States Bell Labs alone invests US$300 million in nanotech research and development every year. And in South Korea, which is Taiwan's biggest competitor, Samsung Electronics has already produced a wide-screen television display using nanotech carbon tubes that has made a huge splash. The scale on which these nations can invest far exceeds that in Taiwan.

After successfully developing a nano-nickel metal hydride battery separator, the Coin Chemical Group is now researching nanotech that can be used in lithium-ion batteries and medical devices. Chuang Wen-feng, Coin's vice general manager, is very pleased that the company has accidentally stumbled into a new industry.

Bringing about the nanotech miracle

Insufficient human resources is another vexing problem. NNDL president Simon Sze points out that last year more than 3000 high-tech positions in Taiwan went unfilled due to a shortage of qualified personnel. Industry wants the government to allow qualified personnel from the mainland to work in Taiwan and to increase international cooperation in order to increase the speed at which personnel are trained. For instance, the NNDL is cooperating with the Canadian National Research Council. Both institutions are sending personnel back and forth to gain knowledge. Their respective staffs have equal access to each other's equipment and are jointly writing papers and filing patents, with the hope that this can overcome the problem of insufficient resources.

NTU professor Lee Chih-kung, who has been advising the government on how to cultivate nanotech personnel, has come up with a "K-12" to prepare students for careers in nanotech. He has selected various flagship schools, including the Chienchung and Taipei First Girls senior high schools, as well as Tunhua Junior High School and the Tunhua and Tungmen elementary schools. They are starting by cultivating future teachers and writing educational plans. They hope to introduce children to the marvels of the nanometric world at as early in their school careers as possible.

"Nanotech will be a key to success in the coming era," says Lee. Today's kindergarten children will be in graduate school in 20 years and eventually become Taiwan's main research force. By starting with instruction at an early age, you get the most bang for your buck. "The 'winning strategy' for the country's future is right here!"

The global battles of nanotech development seem to have started a little ahead of schedule here in Taiwan, where the IT industry seems weary and stagnated and particularly in need of nanotech to bolster its confidence and point to a new direction for industrial development.

ITRI executive vice president Yang Jih-chang says that when he was trying to promote nanotech a year ago, industry seemed to show little interest, which worried him. But recently there has been a steady stream of nanotech conferences and growing exchange between industry, government and universities. "The right atmosphere has formed!" Taiwan had abundant success with the "third wave" of information technology. As for whether Taiwan will reap the economic fruits of the fourth wave of nanotech, only time will tell.

What You Must Know About Nanotech

(Laura Li/tr. by Jonathan Barnard)

1Nature is the most amazing

nanotech engineer.

Everywhere in nature there are fantastic nanometric structures. It's just that people previously knew what they could do, but didn't know how they worked. But now that we can create nanotech, the mysteries are beginning to be exposed.

For instance, human teeth can survive for 1000 years without disintegrating because the surfaces of the teeth have nanometric crystalline structures. And apart from a layer of wax on its feet, the simply designed remigator (an insect) can walk on water thanks to a nanometric structure that helps it repel water so that it won't become waterlogged. The water lily's ability to grow out from mud without being sullied by it is also due to natural nanotech.

What's more, the belly of a bee has magnetic nanometric particles, which it uses like a compass to track its position in relation to flowers, its nest and other bees. Similarly, sea turtles also have similar kinds of particles, which enable them to navigate vast distances in the ocean without getting lost!

2The nanometric world isn't the

smallest

From the macroscopic world that is visible to the naked eye, the nanometric world is unimaginably small. But in the nanometric world, you can still fit from one to ten atoms-never mind subatomic particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrons.

The first character in the Chinese compound for nanotech is (c)`. Its top part is composed of the Chinese character for big (§j). Some say that this represents the macroscopic world of traditional physics. Meanwhile, the bottom part of the character includes the character for small (§p), which is said to represent the microscopic world of quantum mechanics. The nanometric world is said to be the "mesoscopic" world between them.

3Develop the strong points of

nanotech

Nanotech is often praised as being a "green technology." Indeed, if you could use nanotech to create self-cleaning, antibacterial and de-odorizing materials, so that clothes, tableware, fan blades and cars would never need to be washed, and skyscrapers would gleam like new after a little rain, then you could greatly reduce the threat of water shortages.

What's more, nanometric titanium dioxide can effectively process organic wastewater and act as a photocatalyst to help decompose organic toxins and clean up oil spills on the surface of ocean.

As for super-lightweight, super-small, super-fast, super-high-capacity and super-electricity-saving nanoelectronics, a single MRAM unit will replace a whole row of current memory chips, a single disc will be able to store the books of an entire library, and a computer built with carbon nanotubes instead of silicon will operate 50 times faster and consume 50 times less electricity.

What about a mobile phone battery that would run for 100 days without recharging, a nanoengine that would run on a drop of fuel, or even quantum computers or photon ICs? Nanotech also provides hope of release from the oil dependency and oil shortages of the industrial era.

4 Does nanotech contain the poten

tial for disaster?

At the same time that the advantages of nanotech are being widely discussed, some environmentalists are also issuing solemn warnings. Because nanometric substances are by definition too small for the naked eye to see, some worry that it will be difficult to determine whether they are causing environmental problems.

Take one everyday product: the toner used in laser printers. The carbon powder in printer toner is at a nanometric scale and can easily enter cells if it gets into the human body. Might it lead to a health crisis on a similar scale to asbestos? This is an issue that people in various fields are examining closely.

Abroad, nanotech companies often require licenses as "highly polluting industries." In this respect, Taiwan is not as vigilant as it should be. In some plants that make nanometric powders under contract for larger companies, or in mixed processing plants, the air is full of dust from powders that contain ingredients such as metals that may accumulate in the body, yet workers walk about obliviously without special breathing masks or other protective equipment. How to reap the benefits of nanotech without suffering harm requires raising consciousness about environmental concerns and public health.

Nanotech Milestones

(Laura Li/tr. by Phil Newell)

1959

Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman delivers a speech in which he suggests a future form of science in which the entire Encyclopedia Britannica could fit into a space the size of a pinhead, and people could manipulate atoms and molecules. Such ideas, bizarre at the time, open new vistas on nanotechnology.

1962

The Japanese physicist Ryogo Kubo proposes the "Kubo Theory" (a.k.a. the quantum confinement theory). With this discovery, people begin to grasp that materials have different properties at nanoscale sizes than those they normally exhibit.

1974

The Japanese scholar Norio Taniguchi coins the term "nanotechnology" to describe precision machinery processing, but few people realize the potential importance of the field.

1970s

K.Eric Drexler of MIT begins to promote nanotechnology. In 1986 he will publish Engines of Creation, offering detailed descriptions of future molecular and atomic sized devices. The book will be largely rejected as nonsense by mainstream science.

1982

Two scientists at IBM's Zurich Research Center, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, create the first "scanning tunneling microscope," a device capable of observing how atoms are arrayed on the surface of metal materials, thus allowing people to enter the nano-world. In 1986 Binnig will invent the "atomic force microscope," to observe atoms on the surface of non-conducting materials.

1984

The German scientist Herbert Gleiter discovers that nano-scale titanium dioxide ceramics powder has extraordinary resilience, sparking research into all manner of nano-materials.

1985

The British chemist H.W. Kroto and the American chemists R.E. Smalley and R. Curl purify a soccer-ball-shaped nano-structure "C60" (a molecule of 60 carbon atoms)-known as "buckminsterfullerene"-from graphite. From this will be produced many important nano-materials, including carbon nanotubes, invented in 1991 at Japan's NEC corporation.

1990

D. Eigler, a researcher at IBM, uses a scanning

tunneling microscope to spell out the letters "IBM" using 35 xenon atoms. This is the first deliberate manipulation of individual atoms in history.

In July of the same year, the first international nano-technology conference is held in the US, formally establishing nanotechnology as an independent field of study. Large research teams, led by the US and Japan, take nanotechnology research to a new level.