THE WHITE HOUSE
Offce of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 21, 2000
NATIONAL NANOTECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE -
LEADING TO THE NEXT INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
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Nanotechnology is the builder's new frontier
and its potential impact is compelling:
This initiative establishes Grand Challenges
to fund interdisciplinary research and education teams,
including centers and networks, that work for major, long-term objectives.
Some of the potential breakthroughs that may be possible include:
- Shrinking the entire contents of the Library of Congress
in a device the size of a sugar cube through the expansion of mass storage electronics
to multi-terabit memory capacity that will increase the memory storage
per unit surface a thousand fold;
- Making materials and products from the bottom-up, that is, by building them up
from atoms and molecules.
Bottom-up manufacturing should require less material and pollute less;
- Developing materials that are 10 times stronger than steel,
but a fraction of the weight for making all kinds of land, sea, air and
space vehicles lighter and more fuel efficient;
- Improving the computer speed and efficiency of minuscule transistors
and memory chips by factors of millions making today's Pentium IIIs seem slow;
- Using gene and drug delivery to detect cancerous cells by nanoengineered MRI contrast
agents or target organs in the human body;
- Removing the finest contaminants from water and air to promote a cleaner environment and
potable water;
- Doubling the energy efficiency of solar cells.
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