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Nanotech BC focused on promoting the initiatives of the growing number of local nanotechnology companies

Alan Guest and David Roughley are promoters of a small idea. A very small idea with massive potential.

Guest is executive director and Roughley principal of industry and technology for Nanotech BC, the group representing the province's burgeoning nanotechnology sector.

What is nanotechnology?

In Greek, nano means "dwarf." A nanometer is one billionth of a metre. It can be seen only with a powerful microscope.

Tokyo Science University professor Norio Taniguchi coined nanotechnology in 1974 as "the processing of, separation, consolidation and deformation of materials by one atom or one molecule."

Nanotechnology products include suntan lotion, cosmetics and protective coatings.

Apple's tiny iPod Nano is one of the technology's more famous consumer manifestations.

Easton's Sports Stealth CNT baseball bat employed nanotechnology. Nanotechnology even made possible O'lala Foods" chocolate chewing gum. Until nanotechnology, gum and chocolate couldn't stick together as they now can.

"There's a very wide range of definitions. Public understanding is sketchy to say the least," Roughley said.

"One of our jobs is to explain the importance of this technology to our industries and to make sure excellent academic faculties [and] researchers are able to contribute to improved economy of the province through nanotech.

Perhaps the most popular consumer nanotechnology application is on sale at a men's clothing store near you: stain- or spill-repellent pants.

The fabric contains small amounts of highly divided silver.

Roughley said that when things like silver are divided down to the nano particulate level, new properties and uses are discovered. There are even socks that one can wear without the worry of the socks, well, smelling like socks.

It's really the bacteria that live on sweat that make the stink (in socks), Guest says. If you have this nano particulate silver on there, you don't get the bacteria. Certainly for people in the military and others who may be forced to wear the same clothing for a period of time, that is a terrific benefit.

Nanotech BC's mission is to represent the industry to government and unite researchers, academics and business to research, develop and bring to market products.

The four-year-old group, funded mainly via federal and provincial agencies, counts 130 "principal investigators" in academia.

In the last five years, $150 million has been invested in various nanotechnology research projects in B.C., which puts the province just behind Japan but ahead of the United States in per-population spending, according to Guest.

One of the star companies in the sector is Burnaby's D-Wave Systems, a 1999 University of British Columbia. spinoff aimed at creating a new supercomputing system that could be useful to chemists, physicists, electrical engineers, cryogenics experts and computer scientists.

Quantum encryption technologies that offer an unbreakable code to securely send data has governments, security, policing and financial industries interested.

"It's not a slam dunk. It's very risky, necky forward looking stuff," Roughley said.

"We're fortunate enough to have one of those forward looking necky companies here in our town in D-Wave. They've marshalled some excellent resources."

There are other B.C.-based "nanotechs" looking to do big things with the small technology, like micro-fuel-cell company Angstrom Power, dental and orthopedic biomaterials developer Innovative Bioceramix and plasma spray technology firm NW Mettech.

One could ask the question whether nanotechnology is simply renaming existing technologies.

"The answer is technology that's been developed in one sector or industry can have applications in other sectors and industries, and part of our job is to try to bring together communities to discuss groundbreaking transfers from one industry to another.

"It requires cross-pollination," Guest said.

Adds Roughley: "This isn't science fiction for the future. This is something we need to do now.