Nanotechnology is a field of research and innovation concerned with building ‘things’ – generally, materials and devices – on the scale of atoms and molecules. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter: ten times the diameter of a hydrogen atom. The diameter of a human hair is, on average, 80,000 nanometers. At such scales, the ordinary rules of physics and chemistry no longer apply. For instance, materials’ characteristics, such as their color, strength, conductivity and reactivity, can differ substantially between the nanoscale and the macro. Carbon ‘nanotubes’ are 100 times stronger than steel but six times lighter.
Once scientists had the right tools, such as the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and the atomic force microscope (AFM), the age of nanotechnology was born.
Today’s scientists and engineers are finding a wide variety of ways to deliberately make materials at the nanoscale to take advantage of their enhanced properties such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity than their larger-scale counterparts.
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