EDITORIAL

Abstract

This special issue of Nanotechnology contains contributions presented at the second `Trends in Nanotechnology' (TNT2001) international conference, held in Segovia (Spain), 3–7 September 2001. More than 250 scientists from Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries worldwide attended this meeting and contributed with talks, posters and stimulating discussions about their recent research.The importance of nanoscale science is growing worldwide and it is now widely recognized as a critical component to the future growth of the economy. Therefore, global investment in nanotechnology has been growing annually during the last decade and in the last 12 months not only from programmes funded by public institutions but also from venture capitalists. In response to the growing awareness of the importance of nanotechnology, many conferences are being organized to discuss the latest advances. Among these, the series of conferences `Trends in Nanotechnology' have become key meetings in the field since they bring together top-level speakers and fresh ideas in an environment that is suitable for stimulating discussions, the exchange of ideas and building scientific and personal relations among participants.The aim of this conference was to focus on the applications of nanotechnology and to bring together, in a scientific forum, various groups fromthroughout the world. TNT2001 was particularly effective in transmitting information and establishing contacts among workers in this field. Graduate students attending such conferences quickly learn the importance of interdisciplinary skills and become more effective in their future research. Last year, almost 50 graduate students received a grant to assist TNT2001 and presented their work through a poster. The scientific programme, without parallel sessions, covered a wide spectrum of nanotechnology research such as nanotubes, nanomagnetism, nanodevices, nanoscale integration, nanobiology, molecular electronics, computational methods for nanotechnology and nanomaterials.We would like to thank all the participants for their assistance as well as the authors for their written contributions. We are indebted to the following scientific institutions, companies and government agencies for their help and financial support: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CMP Cientifica, University of Cambridge, University of Purdue, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Universidad SEK, PHANTOMS Network (funded by the EU through its IST programme), National Science Foundation, NASA, World Scientific, Motorola, Institute of Physics Publishing, Diputación Provincial de Segovia and the Ministerio Español de Ciencia y Tecnología. We would like also to thank the following companies for their participation: NanoTec, FEI, Raith, Schaefer and ScienTec.We invite readers of this special issue of Nanotechnology to join us in the `Trends in Nanotechnology' conference series. The next conference (TNT2002) is being held in Santiago de Compostela (Spain), 9–13 September 2002. Guest Editors Antonio Correia CMP Cientifica, Spain Pedro A Serena ICMM/CSIC, Spain Mark Welland University of Cambridge, UK Ron Reifenberger Purdue University, USA