During the last two decades, a revolutionary scientific new age, based on the capacity to observe, characterize, manipulate and organize matter in the nanometric scale, is appearing. In this scale, physics, chemistry, materials science, computational theory, and engineering converge towards the same theoretical principles and experimental findings that are basically governed by the laws of the Quantum Mechanics. Nanotechnology involves these interdisciplinary knowledge areas and methodologies in order to study, manufacture and characterize functional structures with dimensions of tens of nanometers.

The three year-old NanoSpain network aims to agglutinate and coordinate the efforts made in the field of the Nanotechnology by Spanish groups from universities, research institutes and companies. Moreover, this network has tried to help the government institutions in defining potential actions and plans referring to this area. Actually the NanoSpain network, comprising 116 Spanish groups with near 400 researchers in total, is one of the widest Spanish scientific networks.

As a direct and most effective way to enhance the interaction between our network members, a first meeting of NanoSpain was organised. Its objective was to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge and promote interdisciplinary discussions among the different NanoSpain groups. In order to organise the various sessions and to select contributions , the meeting was structured in the following thematic lines, but interactions among them were promoted:

1. MEMS/NEMS
2. Nanobiology
3. Nanomaterials
4. Nanochemistry
5. Nanoelectronics
6. Scanning Probe Microscopies (SPM)
7. Scientific infrastructures and Scientific Parks
8. Simulation in the nanoscale

Another objective of this meeting was to permit considering the situation of Nanotechnology in our country, as well as in reaching conclusions concerning the future of the NanoSpain network, in order to guarantee its continuity by means of concrete proposals and a renovation of its structures.


This event received funding from the "Donostia International Physics Center" (DIPC) and the Spanish Ministry of Science through the following two networks:

"Red Española de Nanotecnología (NANOSPAIN)"
Funding Agency: Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología - Acción Especial (MAT2001-5411-E)

"Red Nacional de Investigadores en Nanociencias: Metodologías Experimentales y Teóricas (NANOCIENCIA)".
Funding Agency: Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología - Acción Especial PGC2000-2586-E