Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology Timeline

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4th Century: The Lycurgus Cup (Rome) is an example of dichroic glass; colloidal gold and silver in the glass allow it to look opaque green when lit from outside but translucent red when light shines through the inside. (Images at left.)

13th-18th Centuries: “Damascus” saber blades contained carbon nanotubes and cementite nanowires—an ultrahigh-carbon steel formulation that gave them strength, resilience, the ability to hold a keen edge, and a visible moiré pattern in the steel that give the blades their name. (Images below.)

1959: Richard Feynman of the California Institute of Technology gave what is considered to be the first lecture on technology and engineering at the atomic scale, " There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom " at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech.
1974: Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term nanotechnology to describe precision machining of materials to within atomic-scale dimensional tolerances.

1985: Rice University researchers Harold Kroto, Sean O’Brien, Robert Curl, and Richard Smalley discovered the Buckminsterfullerene (C60), more commonly known as the buckyball, which is a molecule resembling a soccer ball in shape and composed entirely of carbon, as are graphite and diamond.

1985: Bell Labs’s Louis Brus discovered colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots).

1991: Sumio Iijima of NEC is credited with discovering the carbon nanotube (CNT).

1999–early 2000’s: Consumer products making use of nanotechnology began appearing in the marketplace, including nano-silver antibacterial socks, clear sunscreens, wrinkle- and stain-resistant clothing, and deep-penetrating therapeutic cosmetics.

2000: President Clinton launched the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to coordinate Federal R&D efforts and promote U.S. competitiveness in nanotechnology. Congress funded the NNI for the first time in FY2001. The NSET Subcommittee of the NSTC was designated as the interagency group responsible for coordinating the NNI.

2008: The first official NNI Strategy for Nanotechnology-Related Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Research was published, based on a two-year process of NNI-sponsored investigations and public dialogs.

2009–2010: Nadrian Seeman and colleagues at New York University created several DNA-like robotic nanoscale assembly devices .

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  1. https://www.nano.gov/timeline
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