III-Vs Review

In the preface of the now publicly available specification PAS 71:2005 DG David Hughes, DG Innovation Group of the Department of Trade & Industry, says that "terms and definitions may seem to be of little consequence, but is fundamental to the development of a common understanding of the terms in this field."

"From here," he says, "we can begin to address the key societal, commercial and legal issues that face the nanotechnology community today through the development of standards."

One of the most interesting lists in PAS 71:2005 is the "Acknowledgement of organizations" consulted in the development of this vocabulary. (Clearly Shakespeare's "zed thou unnecessary letter" has been abandonned by that bastion of standards, the British Standards Institute.)

One would expect Loughborough University, Malvern Instruments, QinetiQ Nanomaterials and the NPL, but review panel members amazingly include the American Society for Testing and Materials, Germany's BGIA, the Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry at Hebrew University, Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel; the Japanese Minsitry of Economy, Trade and Industry/Japanese Standard Agency committee for Nanotechnology standardization; the National University of Singapore; Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut Chemie and Materialen; Technische Universitat Kaiserlautern and VDI Technologiezentrum GmbH.

It's a lovely eclectic approach, though one can spot some omissions.

The Vocabulary works from General terms, six of those as nanomaterial, nano-particle; nanoscale; nanoscience; nanostructured; nanotechnology. It them moves to particle names: generic, starting with acicular through nanohorn and nano-onion to untrafine or nanoparticle.

Particle names:chemically specific only has seven to date including carbon black, and graphene. But there are 13 nanoparticle systems including colloid and organosol. Some 29 production systems range from from atomization through functionalization, laser pyrolysis to virus templating (courtesy Website of the American Chemistry Society).

And 13 production systems are named, including orthokinetic, perikinetic, Ostwald ripening and solvothermal reaction. Particle characteristics have 13 descriptors from adsorption surface area to zeta potential, while particle volume and diameter run from aerodynaic diameter through Feret's diameter to particle size.

But the best is left to the last with measurement and analysis techniques. Here are 35 and one suspicions that there may be a few lurking and waiting to be added. Then there's the invaluable Abbreviations (please Google get them avaialable for quick searches) and finally a really useful looking index.