Matthias Werner, a technology analyst at Deutsche Bank, illustrates this second type of nanotechnology breakthrough graphically with videos of a surgical scalpel based on a nanostructured diamond.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

The third objective, efficient design, involved sandwiching the nanostructured bismuth telluride between two copper plates and then enclosing the upper plate (the one coated with the light-absorbing oxides) and the bismuth telluride in a vacuum.

ECONOMIST: Solar power