DUSHANBE, January 18, Asia-Plus -- A special department has been established at the Institute for Applied Physics of the Academy of Sciences to develop nanotechnologies, academician Mamadsho Ilolov, President of the Tajik Academy of Sciences, announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on January 17.  

According to the academician, Tajik researchers have already established cooperation with their Russian colleagues in this direction.  

Ilolov noted that this aspect of cooperation was discussed in details during his meeting with Nikolai Laverov, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow last November.  

Nanotechnology refers broadly to a field of applied science and technology whose unifying theme is the control of matter on the atomic and molecular scale, normally 1 to 100 nanometers, and the fabrication of devices with critical dimensions that lie within that size range.

It is a highly multidisciplinary field, drawing from fields such as applied physics, materials science, interface and colloid science, device physics, supramolecular chemistry (which refers to the area of chemistry that focuses on the noncovalent bonding interactions of molecules), self-replicating machines and robotics, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, biological engineering, and electrical engineering.  Much speculation exists as to what may result from these lines of research.  Nanotechnology can be seen as an extension of existing sciences into the nanoscale, or as a recasting of existing sciences using a newer, more modern term.