Nanotechnologies have captured the top three spots in a new index of the top ten topics in physics.

Michael Banks, a PhD student at the MPI-Stuttgart, developed the index based
on the number of published papers and citations for a given topic and the number of years that papers on the topic have been published, according to biohacker.

The following is a list of the 10 hottest topics in physics, based on a larger dataset from Banks' original paper:

1. carbon nanotubes
2. nanowires
3. quantum dots
4. fullerenes
5. giant magnetoresistance
6. M-theory
7. quantum computation
8. teleportation
9. superstrings
10. heavy fermion

If anyone had any doubts nanotech was the hottest topic in physics, this should put them to rest. But it's more than just a hot topic for research and funding; carbon nanotubes, for example, are proving useful in every field from medicine to sports to architecture.

I hope Banks keeps up the list. It'll be interesting to see how the trends change over time, and how long nanotech maintains its dominance.