S.A. Dubyanskiy - Expert, JSC «RUSNANO», Moscow. E-mail: sergey.dubyanskiy@rusnano.com

The present work is devoted to the current state of nanotechnology which is marked by a sharp quantitative and qualitative expansion of the field, tremendous upgrowth of technologies, product differentiation and its broad implementation. Objects with nanoscale characteristic sizes of 100 nanometers and less in at least one of the dimensions as well as macroscopic objects with structure able to be controllably created and modified with particular nanoscale resolution can both be objects of nanotechnology. Differentiated nanotechnology production (NP) came into the mass market in the beginning of the 00s and since the market has been rapidly developing achieving 150 bln. $ in 2007. Almost straight after the emergence of the first mass NP species and the related need to adequately describe such production, as well as to develop standards and methods of NP characteristics assessment, it became clear that the description of NP has a number of distinctive and specific difficulties. NP conformity to the growing quality requirements involves providing an effective NP characteristics and properties assessment. The exhaustive description of NP as object of study involves the nanomaterial (nanostructure) description which constitute the object of NP, as well as the description of the NP object itself. Practically qua approach to the description NP is commonly considered both at the level of the initial nanomaterial (nanolevel), and at the level of production as a whole (macrolevel). The assessment of parameters, characteristics and properties of NP is executed taking into account the particularities of NP. The conformity assessment is the final stage of these operations. The procedure results in making the decision on the NP conformity to the applicable requirements. These operations are performed both on the nanolevel and the macrolevel, which is the specific feature of NP. The choice of evaluation criterion poses a problem for the NP conformity assessment. This is due to the object properties sensitivity on the macrolevel to any object properties change on the nanolevel, insufficient reproducibility of results and a number of other factors. Another particular feature of NP consideration is that NP distinguishes itself by a considerable characteristics variability under the influence of minor changes of physical or chemical properties of the nanomaterial or influencing factors. From there NP should be studied taking into account all the possible states of matter and of the reacting agents. Thus, the characteristics analysis and the NP conformity assessment is a sophisticated complex task. Some production characteristics and properties are heterogeneous, they can be associated with specific conditions of application and often have no numerical character which may involve the application of the decision theory, inter alia the apparatus of the fuzzy sets theory. In estimating the characteristics, properties and conformity of the NP it is necessary to consider external climatic conditions, operating modes, and also the conditions of use in particular spheres. First of all, we should mention the aspect of safety, not only human safety but also environmental and industrial safety. Thus we should carry out the study of the NP taking into consideration the levels of the NP examination and the influencing factors. The analysis performed within this work along with improving and increasing accuracy and reliability of existing nanoobjects characteristics measurements methods as well as developing new methods of measurements, allows to offer a hybrid approach as a basis of methodological approach to the characteristics, properties and conformity assessment of the NP. Hybrid approach assumes: consideration of NP as production having two levels of characteristics; consideration of NP in the section of all its properties, conditions, modes and interactions; use of set of measurements methods ("hybrid metrology") and estimates at every level of NP consideration, as well as in their aggregation; diagnostics application when characteristics measurement is impossible, or the measurements accuracy is insufficient, or when characteristics measurement doesn't give exhaustive information on the NP properties; application of estimation methods, allowing to consider both quantitative and qualitative rates; marking usage not only to confirm safety standards (as is was until now), but also to define NP quality level.