Future trends in nanotechnology and molecular assembly: conceptualising technological innovation and social impact towards 2025

Abstract

Nanotechnology the science of building structures by the manipulation and placement of individual atoms and molecules is fast becoming an important segment to the next technological transformation, as many scientists, futurists and researchers agree. Nanotechnology, as a rapidly progressing field and coupled with the advances of the past fifty years, will have a tremendous impact on fields such as materials, electronics and medicine towards 2025. Rather than providing a detailed approach, this article will identify promising nanotechnology movements and their potentially significant effects on the world, including those with ethical implications. It will focus largely on one aspect of nanotechnology, namely molecular assembly, which could in principle enable manufacturing and production through the bottom-up assembly of consumer goods and products, one atom at a time.