The oft-quoted saying “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan” is certainly true when applied to nanotechnology. The “fathers of nanotechnology” are numerous and those that are often cited include Richard Feynmann, Harold Kroto, Richard Smalley, and all of them deservedly so.
Another one of these fathers of nanotechnology, Gerd Binnig, the 1986 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics for his co-discovery with Heinrich Rohrer of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), recently appeared in IEEE Spectrum.
Binnig shares the process by which he came to develop the STM and later atomic force microscopy (AFM). His continued work at IBMs Zurich Research Laboratory in developing IBMs Millipede project inspires hope that nanotechnology will continue to open new approaches to many scientific disciplines and hasnt been forever lost to the domain of marketers and their unquenchable desire for buzz words.
Ahhh what a pleasure it is to remember that nanotechnology is a set of technologies and not an industry.