Nanotechnology - Interdisciplinarity, patterns of collaboration and differences in application

Nanotechnology is a novel technological field said to be one of the key technologies in the 21st century revolutionizing information technology, materials and medicine. Bibliometric quantification is a way to show the emergence of a new technology. Braun et al.(1) could establish an exponential growth pattern of publications in nano-science and technology starting in the early 1990s. Using their study as basis we intend to further characterize nanotechnology using bibliometric as well as patent data. We can show that the share of boundary-spanning publications is exceptionally high in the field of nanotechnology. Our co-authorship analysis indicates that countries follow different patterns of collaboration. Some countries tend to have bilateral relations while others collaborate with a much larger array of nations. Patent data in combination with bibliometric reveals differences in the application of science. In our conclusion we raise a number of questions requiring an analysis using also other types of data. Still, a closer investigation and disaggregation of bibliometric data may come up with additional findings.