Taniguchi, Norio

Born in 1912, Norio Taniguchi was a Japanese engineer and professor at Tokyo Science University who has been referred to as Japan's father of precision engineering and believed to have been the first to use the term nanotechnology. In a keynote paper titled, “On the Basic Concept of Nano-Technology” for the International Conference on Production Engineering in Tokyo in 1974, Taniguchi described nanotechnology as the technology to work with materials one nanometer in length.

Taniguchi is frequently cited as the first person to use the term nanotechnology; however, the term did not appear again until 1981 when K. Eric Drexler introduced it in his first publication on nanotechnology. Drexler's subsequent development and popularization of the term is generally credited for leading to the establishment of U.S. federal funding for nanotechnology research and development which was begun under the Clinton administration through the National Nanotechnology Initiative in 2000. The Japan Society for Precision Engineering, which sponsored the 1974 conference at which Taniguchi presented his paper on nanotechnology, established a Nanotechnology Committee in the mid 1980s. The research group Yoshida Nano-Mechanisms was established in 1985 with funding from the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology Development Corporation of Japan.

In a 1996 book he edited on nanotechnology, Tanigu-chi wrote that although he used the term nanotechnology to refer to processing technologies at the nanoscale, it had become common in the United States and in Europe to use the term to refer to the science of things at the atomic scale. He wrote that scientific research on the nanoscale was important because without it the type of nanotechnology he proposed would not be possible. Taniguchi also wrote that atomic level nanotechnology was an important future development of nanotechnology, particularly for biological applications.

In 1999, Taniguchi became the first recipient of the European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology (euspen) Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognized his contributions to research and development in ultra-precision materials processing technologies. The inscription on his award also recognized Taniguchi for coining the term nanotechnology. The Society was formed in 1999 to promote cooperation between industry and research. The euspen Council awards the Lifetime Achievement Award annually to an engineer or scientist who has made significant contributions to the development of ultraprecision technologies, including high-precision engineering, microengineering, nanoscience, and nanotechnology.

Norio Taniguchi died on November 15, 1999.