Asian tigers in nanotechnologies: evolutionary path of scientific production of People’s Republic of China, Japan and South Korea

Nanosciences and nanotechnologies (NST) are a developing scientifictechnological area in full expansion and evolution. Their character of General Purpose Technology has been assessed. Asian countries play a relevant role in the evolutionary path and growth of NST, as in some cases they present a rapid growth of scientific production. This work analyzes the performance of three of such countries – People’s Republic of China, Japan, South Korea – emphasizing several aspects of their performance in scientific production and putting in reciprocal relations these aspects. Results show a different behaviour of Japan – which starting from a dominant position is loosing ground with respect to its competitors – and of the other two countries which are catching up. Insights on the internal organization and on the mutual relations are also offered, together with a comparison of the relation with other important areas of NST scientific production.