Should I transition to data science?

Question

Career Advice: Should I stay in nanomaterials, or move into data science?

I made a similar career transition a year ago, from optoelectronic semiconductors to data science at a bank.

There were several reasons behind my rationale for the transition, which could be selling points for transitioning to data science:

Data science was applicable to many industries. When I was job-hunting, I was talking to companies that spans a variety of industries (financial services, software, manufacturing, healthcare... etc) and geographies (many metro areas in continental US), and they all need data scientists. In contrast, optoelectronic semiconductors is both a very specialized and somewhat commoditized field, so the number of job opportunities are limited, and those opportunities that exist tend to concentrated around 1 or 2 industrial clusters within US (bay area being one).
Career growth: data science, being still a very new field, definitely had a lot of room for growth (which is coupled with the point 1), both in terms of roles and responsibilities. I was told by my former colleague that the semiconductor industry in the 80's and 90's made people felt that way too.

With that said, I can also play devil's advocate:

Data science will not have these sort of exponential growth opportunities forever. Are you genuinely excited about the day-to-day job of this new field? Or are you just attracted by the perceived shininess of this new career that everyone is talking about?
Doing data science is a lot more than just knowing how to code in Python/R. It also involve knowledge about stats, machine learning, software engineering, data visualization, and business acumen. How much of these skills do you already have? How close a role to data science were you operating in your old field? If the overlap is small, how do you know you will enjoy the new field?
If you had worked in the field of nanomaterials for 5-10 years but had limited experiences in data science, you likely will not qualify for positions as senior as your previous positions in your old field right off the bat. Consequently, you may be taking a pay-cut in making this career transition to data science. (Not an absolute thing, just a possibility.) Is that something you are willing to do?

I thought a lot about these sort of questions before deciding to make the transition, but in retrospect I am glad I made the jump. Hope that helps!