Nanotechnology is considered a key technology of the 21 st century and it may have an horizontal effect on many industry sectors, with consequences for the whole economy. It can be a catalyst for radical technological progress, leading not only to substantial changes in firms' innovation processes, but also having a significant impact on society.
The essence of nanotech is the size: "The precision placement, measurement, manipulation and modeling of sub-100 nanometer scale matter". A nanometer is one billionth of a meter in size, one millionth of a millimetre. The manipulation of the matter at atomic scale will allow to build complex molecular structures with extremely definite properties. This could bring to the commercialization of materials, devices and drugs with completely new characteristics.
A great potential for nanotechnologies is the interaction with biotechnology, to form a new field such as nanobiotechnology.