Diffusion of Nanotechnology Knowledge in Different Continents

Abstract

Nanotechnology or the design, characterization, production, and application of materials at the scale of 10⁻⁹ m is an emerging field and has many potential applications that piqued the interest of scientists. The diffusion of knowledge in nanotechnology was quantified by modeling it as a Bass diffusion process. The numbers of ISI-indexed journals from 2000-2019 and the numbers of patents granted in USPTO from 2015-2019 were collected from statnano.com and loaded in a statistical software, which was modeled from the Bass equation. Nanotechnology studies diffuse more rapidly in Africa, Europe, and North America than Oceania, South America, and Asia as projected by the Bass diffusion curve of the ISI-indexed journals. The diffusion of nanotechnology is relatively the same for all agents as projected using the USPTO patent data. As a result of this similarity in the patents’ Bass curve, no direct correlation between the number of ISI-indexed journals and patents can be implied. Nevertheless, the Bass graph was able to extrapolate and predict which year one continent will potentially overtake another in terms of nanotechnology diffusion, its specific percentage of adoption at a particular year, and also the years required to reach the inflection point.