![]()
Part One
Advanced Materials, Past and Present
The end of the last century ushered in a revolution in technology that is still unfolding. The emergence of the advanced materials industry, beginning in the early 1980s, ushered in one of the most dynamic and important chapters in U.S. and international industrial history. These revolutionary materials possess new and different types of internal structures and exhibit novel physical and chemical properties with an unprecedented range of application. They have already gained a strategic foothold in international economies. They continue to diffuse into and transform the world that we know, and the society we will come to know over the next century and beyond. By 2020, they will generate direct sales worldwide of hundreds of millions of dollars. These materials invade and restructure virtually all the major industrial sectors. They particularly impact the computer and information sector, redefine the nature of energy creation and transmission, and are leading change of epic proportions in the biomedical, healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing industries. The very nature and trajectory of twenty-first century technological change, and the productivity growth and economic progress that follow in their wake, fundamentally hinges on these essential building blocks of modern life.
These materials include the new generation of metals, advanced plastics and ceramics, and biosynthetics. Beyond these metals and synthetic organic materials, the advanced materials field finds itself embedded within the very heart of the emerging world of nanotechnology. Indeed, the so-called nanomaterials, more than any other area of nanotechnology, amply testifies to the commercial possibilities of this new world of the very small. The techniques, instruments, and knowledge of nanotechnology open up the vast possibility of the manipulation and restructuring of molecular units within many substances and material systems. It is in this realm that some of the most exciting and economically important developments emerge, including nanotubes and nanospheres, thin films, nanofibers, and nanocomposites. The alteration of the vast spectrum of the world’s materials is the most important application of nanotechnology as a whole. Nanotechnology is the key in the coming new generation of polymers, cutting tools, coatings, optical components, catalysts, corrosion-resistant materials, and drug delivery systems.
TABLE I.1. Patent trends: nanotechnology and new materials
| Field name | Number of Patents (1976–2002) |
| Drug: bio-affecting and body-treating compositions | 10,866 |
| Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology | 7,946 |
| Radiant energy | 4,657 |
| Stock material | 3,939 |
| Solid-state devices | 3,933 |
| Semiconductor device manufacturing: process | 3,877 |
| Organic compounds | 3,756 |
| Chemistry: natural resins, derivatives | 3,753 |
| Optics: systems and elements | 3,404 |
| Coating processes | 3,265 |
| Chemistry: analytical and immunological testing | 3,027 |
| Radiation imagery chemistry: process, compositions, and products thereof | 2,983 |
| Optics: measuring and testing | 2,957 |
| Information storage and retrieval | 2,310 |
| Electrical nonlinear devices | 2,286 |
| Chemistry: electrical and wave energy | 1,864 |
| Chemical apparatus and process disinfecting | 1,829 |
| Coherent light generators | 1,775 |
| Compositions | 1,680 |
| Multiplex communications | 1,638 |
| Total | 71,745 |
Trends in the patenting in the field of nanotechnology clearly reflect the important role of new materials in the field, at least in terms of research interest and applications. An influential report put out in 2003 by Lux Capital shows the rapid rise in attention being paid to the field of nanotechnology. From 1995 to 2003, the number of articles published by Dow Jones Publications that mention the word “nanotechnology” increased from less than 20 to over 2,000. If we consider all U.S. business and technical publications, then this range of increase was from under 50 to nearly 5,000, with this latter figure accounting for approximately 85% of all U.S. business and technical publications [1]. Moreover, the major commercial interest in nanotechnology is in the new materials (the so-called nanomaterials). The Journal of Nanotechnology Research, which classified the total number of patents issued in nanotechnology from 1976 to 2002, according to specialty, shows that the two most important groups in terms of patenting activity resided in the new materials arena: “Drugs” and “Chemistry: Molecular Biology.” If we also include the fields of “Organic Compounds,” “Chemistry: Natural Resins,” and “Coating Processes,” we see that the materials field is in the top ten (out of 20 total fields) in terms of patenting. Overall, more than one-half of all these patents (53%) involved research into new nanomaterials.
Based on the above, the patenting of nanomaterials in one form or another occupies three-quarters of nanotechnology’s commercial development. This percentage is likely to grow over time as industry and consumers demand more, cheaper, and different materials.
The current advanced materials revolution, which began in the 1980s, is potentially the most significant and far reaching technological movement since the nineteenth century, not just economically but socially and culturally as well. Although it evolved out of the earlier technologies, it is decidedly not a simple extension of those prior achievements. It has pursued it own, unique trajectory.
One of the major differences between earlier periods of the super molecule and today is that the new-materials revolution is taking place within the context of the globalization movement. This is of critical importance in terms of the distribution of wealth creation internationally. As we shall see, increasingly, the creation of new materials, because of their centrality in industry and society, has become a leading driver of economic growth of nations. Since the 1980s, technological change and economic progress have grown more mutually interdependent with both of these closely shadowing new-materials development. Accordingly, an examination of global technology, and advanced materials in particular, helps determine which nations and regions are gaining and will gain, and which are losing and will lose competitive advantage in the world economic system.
This question lies at the very heart of a fundamental dispute in international business today. One side of the debate sees a steady spreading of economic benefits to more and more countries worldwide, with a resulting social enlightenment following in its wake. But is this the case? Are we indeed seeing the leveling effects of globalization? If, as Thomas Friedman believes, globalization has rendered the world “flat,” does this mean that the United States must relinquish its role as main competitor internationally to other regions and countries, such as Europe or Asia? [3] Much has been written recently on the decline of the United States as an economic power and the surging competitiveness of erstwhile backwater economies, especially within the European and Asian countries. Thus, Thomas Friedman recently wrote: “… the biggest challenge … facing us today [is] the flattening of the global economic playing field in a way that is allowing more people from more places to compete [with the United States] [4].
There is no question that the United States faces greater competition internationally than ever before. But can we say that the United States has been losing ground in this new “flattened” world? One factor that is called into play by those who see globalization as a losing proposition for the United States is the declining academic performance of American high school and college students relative to those of the rest of the world. If the United States continues to lead the world in the quality of its graduate schools, students from Europe and Asia are the ones, some argue, taking maximum advantage of these institutions and then, increasingly, taking the knowledge and skills they have learned and transferring them back to the benefit of their home countries. Greater opportunities in, and enticements offered by governments of, formerly less developed countries, as well as ease of long-distance transportation and the rise of the Internet, entice these superior talents, nurtured by the American higher-educational system, back to their homelands.
And what of Europe, said to be reborn as an economic power? As the European Union expands and becomes more integrated, it gains a number of important advantages. The European Union benefits from an expanding area and population, single market and economies of scale, single currency (and, therefore, cheaper capital and more competition), and a federal government increasingly dedicated to becoming competitive with the United States through centralized policies. More specifically, the European Union increasingly coordinates funding and development activities in the most advanced scientific areas. We might expect then that, given these developments, the European Union should have begun to compete well with the United States, certainly beginning in the 1990s when integration proceeded apace.
Countering this “convergence” view of globalization is the “divergence” or “uneven distribution” model by which economic activity and wealth are concentrated in certain co...
