THE TECHNOLOGY FORECASTING OF NEW MATERIALS: THE EXAMPLE OF NANOSIZED CERAMIC POWDERS

New materials have been recognized as significant drivers for corporate growth and profitability in today’s fast changing environments. The nanosized ceramic powders played important parts in new materials field nowadays. However, little has been done in discussing the technology forecasting for the new materials development. Accordingly, this study applied the growth curve method to investigate the technology performances of nanosized ceramic powders. We adopted the bibliometric analysis through EI database and trademark office (USPTO) database to gain the useful data for this work. The effort resulted in nanosized ceramic powders were all in the initial growth periods of technological life cycles. The technology performances of nanosized ceramic powders through the EI and USPTO databases were similar and verified by each other. And there were parts of substitutions between traditional and nanosized ceramic powders. The bibliometric analysis was proposed as the simple and efficient tools to link the science and technology activities, and to obtain quantitative and historical data for helping researchers in technology forecasting, especially in rare historical data available fields, such as the new materials fields.