Taiwan Today

Taiwan continues its efforts in pursuit of “small” breakthroughs.

In October 2012, the Taiwan Nano exhibition celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Taipei World Trade Center. The show is part of the National Program on Nano Technology (NPNT) and the 2012 show reminded attendees how closely nanotechnology can be connected to everyday life, with waterproof or antibacterial laptop casings, cellphones, speakers and clothing just a few of the items on display. “Nanotechnology is a wide field ranging from advanced scientific research and high-tech applications in electronics to the traditional industrial sector,” says NPNT director Wu Chung-yu (吳重雨), a professor in the Department of Electronics Engineering and former head of National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu City. The NPNT, which was launched in 2003, is a landmark project that is a major part of the effort to promote the scientific and technological development of the country’s academic and industrial sectors.

NCTU is a major institute for engineering and sciences and launched Taiwan’s first graduate program for nanotechnology in 2003 as part of its Department of Materials Science and Engineering. In recent years, nanotech research centers or laboratories as well as related programs have emerged in many local universities such as National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County and National University of Kaohsiung (NUK) in southern Taiwan. Signaling the importance of Taiwan Nano and the sector in general, the 2012 opening ceremony was attended by Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆), the president of NDHU and a former minister of the Cabinet-level National Science Council, the major government force behind the NPNT. Huang Jow-lay (黃肇瑞), who leads NUK and is one of the NPNT’s co-directors, also took part in the ceremony.

Next Big Thing

In fact, nanotechnology has been widely viewed as heralding the next industrial revolution, with increasing resources and top talent around the globe being mobilized to apply its benefits to daily life. Su Tsung-tsan (蘇宗粲), the other NPNT co-director, heads the Material and Chemical Research Laboratories in the government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Hsinchu. “Nanotech is a tool and now almost everything done in our laboratories has something to do with it,” Su says. In 2002, ITRI, the largest research and development organization in Taiwan, established the Nanotechnology Research Center to coordinate the nanotech efforts of the institute’s many laboratories in various fields. Su is a former director of the center.

With its long-standing, substantial connections to the industrial sector, ITRI, together with several other government agencies and schools, has produced thousands of nanotechnology patents available for commercial application. “While those technology transfers represent a great deal of money, the core of our efforts is much more about how relevant knowledge can be disseminated to help upgrade businesses,” Su says. Ker Ming-dou (柯明道), also a professor in NCTU’s Department of Electronics Engineering and the NPNT’s executive director, says that for a business forerunner like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., for example, keeping up with nanotech development is a must to maintain a leading edge. In 2012, the company approached the NPNT office to discuss the possibility of forming alliances in both the business and academic sectors, Ker adds.

The prefix “nano,” with its origin in the ancient Greek word for “dwarf,” means a billionth. The “nanometer,” or one-billionth of a meter, is the basic metric unit for nanotechnology. On the nanoscale, “the properties of a material become very different from those in the bulk state,” Wu Chung-yu explains. For example, due to changes of physical and chemical properties, nanoscopic gold is red in color, Ker notes. “A butterfly’s wing is actually black and white in color,” he says, citing another example. “It’s the wing’s nanostructure that causes the refraction of light meeting our eyes.” A commonplace nano-phenomenon is the way that water beads on a lotus leaf instead of sticking to it. By duplicating the effect, self-cleaning products can be created. Textiles processed with nano materials can be used to make socks that do not easily hold odors, for instance, so that “hikers can be spared the trouble of having to wash them often,” Ker says. The professor, who doubles as dean of NCTU’s College of Photonics at the school’s new campus in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City, points out that nanotechnology can enhance various categories of products such as batteries, cosmetics, integrated circuits, pesticides, tiles, tires and even food, which “can be made easier for the human body to absorb,” he adds.

New Frontier for Medicine

In the 1980s, the development of high-powered microscopes and other instruments enabled the imaging, measurement and manipulation of matter at the nanoscale and thus launched the field of nanotechnology. Since 2009, the NPNT has focused on several major industrial areas, allocating 70 percent of its total budget of around NT$12 billion (US$400 million) to instrument development; electronics and optoelectronics; energy and the environment; traditional industry; agriculture and biomedicine. The extension of nanotech into this last sector is a relatively new endeavor in Taiwan, but one with great potential. A notable development was the world’s first human clinical trial of in vivo radiation for nano-cancer therapy after approval by the government’s Food and Drug Administration in 2011. Such a treatment mechanism, which can selectively target cancer sites, produce better therapeutic effects and reduce toxicity, was developed by the government’s Institute of Nuclear Energy Research under the Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Council. “Nanoscience has a solid, clear theoretical base that anticipates major breakthroughs in research results and a diversity of applications,” says Lai Wen-fu (賴文福), a professor of medical science at Taipei Medical University and director of the university hospital’s Center for Nano-Tissue Engineering and Imaging Research. The center will become part of the university this year, and collaborate with international medical centers to expand its research capacity.

According to the ITRI’s Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center, the total production value of Taiwan’s nanotech-related building materials, household appliances, machinery, plastics, rubber, resin coating and textiles hit NT$9.37 billion (US$318 million) in 2011 and is expected to exceed NT$10 billion (US$333 million) in 2012. The NPNT says since 2003, more than NT$30 billion (US$1 billion) has gone into finding ways to use the latest nanotech developments to add value to products, a figure made up of private investment and government subsidies to businesses. ITRI’s Su points out that Taiwan has solid manufacturing skills, which could be combined with nanotechnology to create a wide range of new or improved products. Moreover, Lai notes that a company does not necessarily have to invest very much money to begin making goods with nanotech elements, an important consideration for the country’s many small and medium-sized businesses.

From 2009 to the first half of 2012, according to the NPNT office, more than 5,400 papers by Taiwanese scholars related to nanotechnology were published in the world’s major scientific periodicals including Chemical Reviews, Nature, Progress in Polymer Science and Science. In the same period, more than 10,000 local graduate students completed their master’s or doctoral degrees in nano-related areas. The NPNT’s education programs also operate at the elementary and high school levels by offering training for primary and secondary-school science teachers. “They know what kids like and how to teach it to them,” Su says. “You can’t expect university teachers to make teaching materials for elementary students.”

The NPNT works with a number of international programs and institutions in countries including Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Japan, Russia, Spain and the United States. For example, in June 2011, the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles signed a memorandum of understanding with NPNT for collaboration, with the institute’s director, Paul Weiss, representing his organization at the opening of the 2012 Taiwan Nano exhibition. The opening ceremony also saw the signing of a similar agreement between the NPNT and M-era.Net, a service that was launched in February 2012 as a platform for funding materials science and engineering programs. “We’re its only partner outside Europe,” NPNT’s Wu notes. In a 2010 report released by Lux Research Inc., a US provider of strategic advice and intelligence for emerging technologies, Taiwan ranked as a “dominant” country in terms of nanotech activity. The report evaluates various factors including the number of dedicated government and university facilities, companies active in the sector, patents filed and publications in international journals, as well as the amount of public and private funding available for nanotechnology. The 2010 survey analyzed nanotech development in 19 countries including Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, mainland China, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States. Taiwan claimed the leading position in the category of nanotech emphasis, which indicates a country’s intensity of focus on the field.

Taiwan’s commitment to nano-technology can also be seen in the government’s promotion of a nano-product certification system since 2004. Created by ITRI’s Center for Measurement Standards and issued by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the “nanomark” was the first of its kind in the world. Iran and Thailand have since launched similar programs and other countries have shown interest in such certification. Su says that labels indicating the presence of nanotechnology in an item could be used like disclaimers, similar to the way genetically modified products are identified. Taiwan’s nanomark is intended as a positive form of labeling, however, with the certification aimed at helping nanotech companies boost the reputation of their products and enabling consumers to avoid fake merchandise. The nanomark also offers consumers greater peace of mind, as companies must meet nano-risk management criteria that target environmental, health and safety concerns in collaboration with the government’s Council of Labor Affairs, Environmental Protection Administration and Department of Health. As of October 2012, around 1,150 products from 34 Taiwanese companies had been granted nanomarks. Recently certified items include an antimicrobial housing for a computer mouse and antibacterial plastic components for a toilet tank that make use of silver nanoparticles.

Wu Chung-yu says that after the NPNT ends in 2014, government support will be channeled through individual ministry departments. The budget for the NPNT’s second six-year phase from 2009 to 2014 is expected to total US$595.6 million, which is not particularly high in comparison with spending by other countries pursuing nanotechnology such as the United States or South Korea, a country noted for enormous government support of large-scale national high-tech programs. Yet, Taiwan boasts an active private sector that, as the Lux Research report points out, contributes significantly to the country’s nanotech efforts in addition to “modest” government assistance. It is hoped that with proper government initiatives and growing corporate involvement, Taiwan is on its way to creating more than modest success in the nano-world.

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw