Nanotechnology, a term used to refer to materials, devices, and structures measuring 1 billionth to 100 billionth of a meter, has recently been hailed as the area of science and engineering most likely to produce the breakthroughs of the next century. The top 25 papers in nanotechnology reveal the following important themes in current research: first, methods for synthesizing nanomaterials and nanodevices and, in particular, the self-assembly of materials and structures on nanometer scales; second, the synthesis and characterization of specific nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes, which have the potential to work as molecular quantum wires, semiconductor clusters, quantum dots, and nanocrystals; and, third, the synthesis and characterization of specific nanoscale devices, such as light-emitting diodes. Another subject that hits the top 25 is the synthesis and operation of nano-electrospray mass spectrometry for the direct analysis of peptide samples and even protein sequencing.
Methodology
To construct this database, papers were compiled based on title- and author-supplied keywords for nanotechnology. The keywords were extracted using the stem "nano-."
The baseline time span for this database was 1991-2000. The resulting database contained 32,605 papers; reflecting the contributions of 47,143 authors; 99 countries; 1,840 journals; and 6,377 organizations.
Rankings
Once the database was in place, it was used to generate the lists of top 25 papers, authors, journals, institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1991-2000.
The top 25 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total papers, total cites, and total cites/paper.
Ranking by total cites was used as the basis for determining which authors, journals, institutions, and countries to feature in our editorial section.
Nanotechnology
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