Small is beautiful

Oxford Instruments'  recent pledge to put nanotechnology at the heart of its growth strategy provided more evidence that the nano-sector is rapidly moving from the domain of pure science into serious commercial applications.

The UK advanced instrumentation specialist has identified nanotechnology as one of three high-growth sectors — the others are environmental monitoring and molecular bioscience — which merit significant investment for the future, even if this has a short-term impact on profitability.

Like others operating in the field, Oxford Instruments has worked out that the burgeoning variety of nanoapplications will require an array of associated technologies in areas such as monitoring, measurement and analysis.

Oxford Instruments’ expectations of explosive growth in the sector received a big endorsement just a few weeks ago, when the European Commission recommended that a significant chunk of the EU’s vast research funds should be devoted to nanotechnology between now and 2009.

The Commission made its call in its Nanosciences and Nanotechnology Action Plan for Europe, an attempt to formulate a Europe-wide approach to a sector it expects to grow by ‘hundreds of billions of euros’ over the coming decades.