The definition of nanotechnology has changed over the years from roughly "building products with atomic precision" (atomically precise manufacturing or APM) to one that encompasses a wide range of technologies that meet a certain size threshold. The current definition requires only that the technology deals with matter with at least one dimension measuring between 1 and 100 nm.

This results in a wide variety of research areas fitting the "nanotechnology" category. If you're looking to track nanotechnology-related developments in--say--molecular biology, then browsing a nanotechnology publication or news site would turn up potentially uninteresting results, like research in semiconductor device fabrication, even though they're both nanotechnology.

Tracking Progress in Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM)

The task seems harder for APM because it combines subfields that aren't always called "nanotechnology". Further, scientists and engineers in these fields might not know that their work could advance APM.

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One proposed approach to designing APM systems involves using biomolecular materials—think proteins, DNA—to build machines that give us more control at the nanoscale. We'd then build on these machines to create more complex, stiff machines that would have been hard to make if we didn't start with softer squishy stuff.*

To observe developments in this aspect of APM you'd want to look at domains like supramolecular chemistry and protein engineering. Since research in these areas isn't usually called "nanotechnology", browsing the general category won't be fruitful.

What to do, then? Well, we can start by figuring out what APM isn't. We'll look at that in the next article of this series.

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* Drexler, K. Eric. Radical Abundance. Chapter 5 and Appendix I.