A Bid to Take The Lead

This article reviews the Korean government initiative to support a pillar of its economic strength, electronics. Analysts see demand is increasing for faster and smaller devices, which are already bordering the nanometer scale. As a result, Korea has put forth an ambitious plan that will prepare itself to achieve world-class competitiveness in nanotechnology within the next 10 years. Many nanotechnology-related research projects are conducted by various groups in the government, university, and industrial laboratories covering nanomagnetic and ferroelectric thin-film processing, carbon nanotubes for molecular electronic devices, quantum dots, quantum computing, nanolithography, single-electron transistors, scanning probe microscope-based surface physics, and nanoelectromechanical systems. The center’s mission is to help build up national infrastructure so Korea may join the ranks of the five leading countries in the world in the relevant micro and nanosystems technology by 2010. The two main areas of research in this project are a swallowable endoscopic microcapsule for examining digestive tracts and a wearable personal digital assistant for information technology applications.