Researchers in the field of transducers and micro/nanotechnology have made tremendous strides during the past decade. Throughout this period of progress, the Asia-Pacific Conference on Transducers and Micro-Nano Technologies (APCOT) has been one of the premier venues for reporting on results in this field. In this special section of the Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS (JM³), we are pleased to present selected papers from the fourth APCOT conference held during June 2008 in Tainan, Taiwan.

The diversity of techniques discussed in papers selected for this special section range across microfluidics, micro/nanotechnology, material sciences, sensors and actuators, packaging and assembly technology, RF and optical MEMS, and chemistry. We believe all of these papers project the essence of APCOT—they present rigorous techniques for developing tools that can be applied to practical problems. Many of these papers have associated tool implementations, and several papers report on experimental studies that demonstrate the practicality of approaches they propose.

The purpose of this special section is to highlight recent progress in the application of transducers and micro/nanotechnologies. We have invited several researchers to contribute to this special section. We hope that their key works will enlighten us on the recent trends in the development of transducers and micro/nanotechnology.

I would like to thank Dr. Burn J. Lin, the Editor-in-Chief of JM³, for providing me with the opportunity to act as the guest editor of this special section. Finally, my deep gratitude is directed to Ms. Felicia Andreotta for her kind support and assistance in organizing this special section.