The new millennium has seen the birth of a new perspective that conflates research in solid-state physics, biological science as well as materials engineering. The perspective is one that recognizes that future new advances in all these areas will be based on a fundamental understanding of the atomic and molecular infrastructure of materials that has resulted from two centuries of chemistry. Major advances will be achieved when the novel behavior, in particular the quantum mechanical behavior, that nanoscale structures possess, can be controlled and harnessed
