August 09 ElectroIndustry - 7

NANOTECHNOLOGY partnerships are established with organizations that are financially sound and already have access to large markets. For all stages of subassembly development and commercialization, the forces of market-pull and technology-push are combined efficiently, but with an emphasis on market-pull. and durability of subassemblies with enhanced functionality based on nanoelectrotechnologies. Nanoelectrotechnology stakeholders tend to prefer standards for nanoscale contacts that are as technology- and materialneutral as possible without being too nanoelectromaterial or process specific. Performance, reliability, and durability of future nanoscale devices depend critically on gaining molecular-level and nanoscalelevel understanding of contact formation and functionality in terms of carrier transport and electrical, optical, magnetic, chemical, and mechanical properties. This leads to several questions. • How are electronic, optical, magnetic, chemical, and mechanical properties of the nanoelectromaterial affected by contacts? • How do molecules and nanoelectromaterials respond when contacts are established? • What roles do contact metal and alloys play? • Are our theoretical understanding, computer simulations, and visualization methods such that we can predict the carrier transport as well as electrical, optical, magnetic, chemical, and mechanical properties of nanoscale systems? • How will we separate electronic, optical, magnetic, chemical, and mechanical effects and measure detailed changes in such effects during the formation and lifetimes of contacts? • How will we answer these types of questions? The instruments that will be used to answer such questions are expensive. Interpreting and extracting meaningful results from the large sets of data requires considerable time and expertise from many disciplines. In principle, many instruments and techniques that could provide significant insights do not deliver because the results that they give may lead to inadequate correlations among properties and dynamic behavior of contacts during formation and during their useful lifetime before failure. Standards and their associated measurements will play critical roles in enabling such validated correlations to advance innovation. Product Opportunities With an appropriate business plan in place and with finite resources, IEC TC 113 must decide which product sectors deserve its initial focus. Nanoscale electrical contacts have diverse applications in many product categories that create opportunities for many companies. The 2008 NIST-EnergeticsIEC TC 113 Survey established priorities for standards in nanoelectrotechnologies and assigned energy and medical products the highest priority, as shown in the table below. (Also see Survey Results for Standardization Priorities, page 10) Priority Product Categories for Nanoelectrotechnical Standardization Priority Product Category 1 Energy (production, conversion and storage) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Medical products Computers (all types) and peripherals Telecommunication and data communications (wireless and wired physical connections) Security and emergency response devices and applications Multimedia consumer electronics Household and consumer applications Transportation (sea/water, ground, air, space) Economic Significance If the rate of technology innovation were to slow dramatically because of performance, reliability, and durability of nanoscale contacts, there would be a slowing in the introduction of new computing and consumer electronics. This in turn would reduce growth in the semiconductor sector and would have a negative ripple effect in other sectors. Such a decline would have considerable productivity implications for all global economic sectors that rely on semiconductors. Some say that 25 percent of the U.S. economic growth depends on semiconductors. Furthermore, if the nanoscale contact processes have unacceptable variations, then the yield for circuits may become too low for traditional business models. This would dramatically increase the cost of products, make the new technology more costly, and reverse the four decades old deflationary trend in the semiconductor industry. The U. S. National Science Foundation (NSF) stated in its 2001 publication Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology that “Nanoscale science and engineering will lead to better understanding of nature; advances in fundamental research and education; and significant changes in industrial manufacturing, the economy, healthcare, and environmental management and sustainability.” NSF further predicts that the worldwide market of nanotechnology-related products will be more than $1 trillion August 09 Challenges The commercial success of many nanoscale electrotechnical subassemblies will require contacts or connections to micro- and macro-scale devices and systems. Present instrumentation to characterize and view three-dimensional (3D) nanoscale contacts is not adequate for accelerating innovation and commercialization. Current standards and measurement methods and the theories used to interpret them make it difficult to assess performance, reliability, • NEMA electroindustry 7

August 09 ElectroIndustry

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of August 09 ElectroIndustry