日米におけるナノテクノロジーの解釈と研究開発の相違

カーボンナノチューブを事例にして

抄録

　The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) started in the USA after Clinton’s speech in 2000 .Following the implication of the NNI, the Japanese government has designated the area of nanotechnology and materials as one of the four prioritized areas to fund and has raised its budges to one comparable with the USA. However, nanotechnology has emerged as a broad, exciting, yet illdefined field of scientific research and technological innovation. In the USA, the essence of nanotechnology has been interpreted as the ability to work at the atomic and molecular levels to create materials and devices with novel functions. On the other hand, nanotechnology as an interpretation of nano-scale engineering has been overwhelmingly accepted in Japan.

　In this study, we present the assumption that such a difference of interpretation might affect the progress of their R&D in Japan and the USA based upon carbon nanotubes (CNT). The progress of the R&D was analyzed based upon not only research articles and US patents, but also the outcome of NEDO’s project recently finished. A stagnation of the R&D after 2002 in Japan was observed in comparison with favorable progress in USA. This seemed to be a result of the difference of interpretations of nanotechnology.