Perspective and Challenges for Commercializing Nano-Technology in Korea

Nanotechnology(NT) is a typical emerging technology for next generation. In Korea, as other countries, considerable attention from public and private sector has focused on the nanotechnology due to the potential use in many industries and markets. Reports forecasting the technology for future expected that NT will be an alternative after 2020. Korean government kept investing for NT since ‘Korea National Nanotechnology Development Plan’ has established at 2001. Technical competitiveness in NT of Korea has improved and is on the level after US, Japan and Germany. The number of patent and research papers on NT is also increased after public investment has started. Recently the demand for industrialization of nanotechnology is raising because public investment has continued over decade. However, even though government continued investment in nanotechnology, the commercialized products or technologies based on NT are rare. In this study, we will summarize the policy on nanotechnology of Korean government after national plan has set and compare the market outlook and status for nanotechnology development and market. And we will also check the difficulties of commercialization from the companies working with nanotechnology or nano-product in market. Finally the direction of policy for promoting the commercialization and further development of nanotechnology will be addressed