Nanotechnology delivers military power

Scientists are using nanotechnology to create materials with properties that will revolutionize military technology, from processors to display screens and from body armor to air filters.

By Ben Ames

Army leaders are looking for a 21st century battlesuit. The lycra-tight clothing must stop bullets, detect chemical and biological agents, monitor a wounded soldier's vital signs, administer basic first aid, and communicate with headquarters.

One approach could provide answers for all those challenges -- nanotechnology.

In March 2002, Army planners granted $50 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., to create the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. Across the country, military research dollars are flowing to nanotechnology laboratories, as engineers find ways to build more-efficient batteries, more-powerful fuel cells, more-receptive solar cells, more-affordable titanium metal, and more-sensitive chemical and biological agent detectors.

Nanotechnology is no longer a dream discipline for future research -- it is creating products for specific applications today.