Timeline

18 moments that made nanotechnology what it is. Each one is a publication, a first or a decision that can be looked up.

1. 1857Michael Faraday prepares colloidal gold and attributes its colour to extremely small particles.
2. 1931Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska build the first electron microscope.
3. 1959Richard Feynman gives the lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” at Caltech.
4. 1974Norio Taniguchi introduces the term “nano-technology”.
5. 1981Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer build the scanning tunnelling microscope. Aleksey Yekimov reports size-dependent colour in semiconductor nanocrystals in glass.
6. 1985Kroto, Curl and Smalley discover the C60 molecule, buckminsterfullerene.
7. 1986Binnig, Quate and Gerber introduce the atomic force microscope. Eric Drexler publishes Engines of Creation.
8. 1989Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer position thirty-five xenon atoms one at a time; the result is published in 1990.
9. 1991Sumio Iijima reports carbon nanotubes.
10. 1993Moungi Bawendi’s group publishes a synthesis that yields quantum dots of controlled, uniform size.
11. 1995The first nanoparticle medicine, a liposomal cancer drug, is approved in the United States.
12. 2000The United States announces its National Nanotechnology Initiative.
13. 2004Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolate graphene.
14. 2005The International Organization for Standardization sets up its technical committee on nanotechnologies.
15. 2006Paul Rothemund publishes DNA origami.
16. 2016The Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognises the design and synthesis of molecular machines.
17. 2020Lipid nanoparticles carry the mRNA of the first authorised mRNA vaccines into cells.
18. 2023The Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognises the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.