Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea

Electronics

Electronics is currently the workhorse technology for computing and communications as well as a major component of consumer goods. Though few of us are old enough to remember crystal radios, some can remember vacuum tube electronics. When we first talked about the advent of the transistor and then of integrated circuit and silicon chip manufacture, we asserted that these were powerful economic, societal, and technological forces and that their development led to the growth of high-tech applications, which has dominated the industrial and commercial progress in the developed world in the last third of the 20th century. The ongoing development of electronics continues to provide a huge bounty both financially and in terms of quality ...