Abstract
The notion that the laws of nature might lead to the spontaneous generation of ordered structure can be found at least as early as Descartes’ seventeenth century Discourse on Method.1 The modern usage of the term self-organization dates back to 1947,2 while the term nanotechnology appeared late in 19883 as a means of emphasizing the importance of nanometer-level precision in the top-down processing of submicrometer structures for electronics and optoelectronics. If one searches the Web of Science for “self-organization” and “nano-*,” over 1000 entries appear, with the first of them4 dating to 1991, the only article published on that juxtaposition of subjects that year.