Early beginning and development

(This historical timeline is marked 'Not for examination' in the book, but is included here for context.) The ideas behind nanoscience and nanotechnology were described well before the terms themselves were coined:

• 1959 -- American physicist Richard Feynman delivered his now-famous lecture 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom', describing processes that would let scientists manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules -- widely seen as anticipating the entire field.
• 1974 -- Professor Norio Taniguchi, while working on ultra-precision machines, coined the term nanotechnology.
• 1981 -- Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer developed the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM), letting researchers view individual atoms on a material's surface for the first time -- the moment modern nanotechnology is usually said to have begun.
• 1989 -- Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer at IBM's Almaden Research Center manipulated 35 individual xenon atoms to spell out the IBM logo, demonstrating precise atom-by-atom manipulation.
• 1990s-2000s -- dedicated research groups and committees formed to drive nano-related research, and the first consumer products using nanotechnology reached the marketplace. …