When I googled for „Nanotechnology Collaboration India Korea‟, not much came out, but one news item stood out: Dec. 8th, 2009; “The Nano Science & Technology Consortium (NSTC) located at NOIDA, India, announced a tie-up with Midas Systems, Korea to supply high-end nanofabrication equipment in India”. Midas Systems, Korea develops and produces various high end equipments such as Spin Coaters, Nano Imprint equipment and Mask Aligners.
Interestingly NSTC in India and Midas in Korea are not household names for nanotechnology!
Nanotechnology (NT) involves controlled manipulation of materials at the nanoscopic level to achieve remarkable properties at the macroscopic bulk level. Recently, the International Organization for Standards (ISO) defined nanomaterial to have at least one dimension less than 100 nm (nanometer is a billionth of a meter). According to US Interagency Working Group on Nano Science, Engineering and Technology (IWGN) on NT Research Directions (Sept. ‟99): “Nanotechnology will be a strategic branch of science and engineering for the 21st century, one that will fundamentally restructure the technologies currently used for manufacturing, medicine, defence, energy production, environmental management, transportation, communication, computation and education”.
Following the US lead of “National Nanotechnology Initiatives (NNI)” in 2001, several countries adopted NT as a prime area of focus for the national development. Because of the tremendous potential and realizable economic impacts, investments have been on increase for the last several years. The proposed NNI budget in US for FY2010 is $1.64 billion (Cumulative investment of $12 billion since 2001). This includes NT-based bio research and “Environment, Health and Safety (EHS)” research. Projected world-wide market for NT enabled products will be between $500 billion and $2 trillion by 2015.
Both India and South Korea have recognized nanotechnology as crucial for economical growth and therefore implemented programs to support this.
Here is a list of programs, facilities, universities and companies in India & South Korea focusing on NT. I hope that this will provide additional useful information for establishing and continuing active long range collaborations between the two countries in the exciting field of NT.
( For full paper please refer to Attached PDF)