| The 1980s and 1990s: Nanotechnology picks up pace | |
| 1981 |
Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invent the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), a device that can create
images of the nano world. This invention wins Binnig and Rohrer the Nobel Prize in physics in 1986. |
| 1985 |
Professors Harold Kroto, Richard Smalley and Robert Curl discover fullerenes, football-shaped molecules
made up of sixty carbon atoms (a breakthrough that won them the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996). |
| 1986 |
Eric Drexler proposes bottom-up nanotechnology with the publication of his book, Engines of Creation . |
| 1989 |
Don Eigler, a physicist at IBM Research Division's Zurich laboratory, succeeds in manipulating atoms using
an STM, providing a concrete demonstration of how single atoms could be assembled. [An example of molecular manipulation using an STM probe]
 · Click image to view a larger illustration. |
| 1991 |
Professor Sumio Iijima of Meiji University (also an NEC research fellow) discovers carbon nanotubes, hollow
tubes of several nanometers derived from graphite sheets. |
