Nanotechnology:
Nanotechnology is science, engineering, and technology conducted at the
nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers.
Nanoscience and nanotechnology: are the study and application of
extremely small things and can be used across all the other science fields,
such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, and engineering.
The ideas and concepts behind nanoscience and nanotechnology started
with a talk entitled “There’s
Bottom”
Plenty of Room at the
by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical
Society meeting at the California Institute of Technology on December
29, 1959, long before the term nanotechnology was used. In his talk,
Feynman described a process in which scientists would be able to
manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules. Over a decade
later, in his explorations of ultraprecision machining, Professor ( Norio
Taniguchi) coined the term nanotechnology. It wasn't until 1981, with the
development of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) that could
"see" individual atoms, that modern nanotechnology began.
It’s hard to imagine just how small nanotechnology is. One nanometer
is a billionth of a meter, or 10-9 of a meter. Here are a few illustrative
examples:

There are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch

A sheet of newspaper is about 100,000 nanometers thick

On a comparative scale, if a marble were a nanometer, then one meter
would be the size of the Earth
Nanoscience and nanotechnology : involve the ability to see and to
control individual atoms and molecules. Everything on Earth is made up
of atoms—the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the buildings and houses
we live in, and our own bodies.
But something as small as an atom is impossible to see with the naked
eye. In fact, it’s impossible to see with the microscopes typically used in
a high school science classes. The microscopes needed to see things at the
nanoscale were invented relatively recently—about 30 years ago.
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.
Although modern nanoscience and nanotechnology are quite new,
nanoscale materials were used for centuries. Alternate-sized gold and
silver particles created colors in the stained glass windows of medieval
churches hundreds of years ago. The artists back then just didn’t know
that the process they used to create these beautiful works of art actually
led to changes in the composition of the materials they were working
with.
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.
Do you know your weight in pounds? How about in kilograms? Or in
stones?? The need for standards may not be obvious until you realize that
we use them every day.
When it comes to standards, the fundamental units of measurement, The
International System of Units (abbreviated SI from French: Le Système
International d'Unités) form the basis for most measurements and
underpin global trade and commerce. These standards are vital to
continued progress in nanotechnology research and development, and for
safe, secure, and responsible commercialization of nanotechnology in the
years ahead.
However, progress in nanotechnology depends on more than just standard
units. In order to ensure consistency, repeatability, and accuracy there
must be standards of practice (e.g., procedures and guidelines) and
standards for verification (e.g., reference materials). In this way, we can
categorize standards broadly into measurement standards, reference
standards, and documentary standards.
The International System of Units has seven base quantities: length, mass,
time,
electric
current,
substance, and luminous
thermodynamic
intensity.
Their
temperature,
amount
respective base
of
units—
the meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela—are
often combined to make derived units such as the joule (energy, work,
heat),hertz (frequency), and volt (electrical potential). All are relevant to
nanotechnology, in particular, the unit of length at the nanoscale, the
nanometer. This is a standard prefix unit that is derived from the base
unit meter by subdividing the meter by a factor of one billion.
A derived unit important to nanotechnology is the unit of force, the
Newton. The force exerted by the cantilevers used in atomic force
microscopes is typically specified in terms of nanoNewtons or onebillionth of a Newton. (For reference, a Newton is force about equal to
the weight of an apple on Earth.)
Reference material standards are used to verify a quantitative
measurement. These are materials that are typically issued by a standards
laboratory such as a national measurement institute and certified to have
specified characteristics referenced to the fundamental SI system of
physical units of measurement, when measured in a prescribed manner.
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), located in
Sèvres near Paris, France, has the task of ensuring world-wide uniformity
of measurements and their traceability to the SI basic units.
Documentary standards are agreed-upon processes or specifications for a
field of science, engineering, or technology; they represent the consensus
viewpoint of the experts developing the standard on aspects such as
procedures for conducting measurements; performance characteristics of
instruments or commercial products, etc. Thus, they are documented
approaches that play a very important role in facilitating trade and
commerce.
Illustrative
examples
of
documentary
standards
available
for
nanomaterials (see below for definition of acronyms used in
the "Identifier” column.)
Just how small is “nano?” In the International System of Units, the prefix
"nano" means one-billionth, or 10-9; therefore one nanometer is onebillionth of a meter. It’s difficult to imagine just how small that is, so here
are some examples:
- A strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter
- A human hair is approximately 80,000- 100,000 nanometers wide
- A single gold atom is about a third of a nanometer in diameter
- On a comparative scale, if the diameter of a marble was one nanometer,
then diameter of the Earth would be about one meter
- One nanometer is about as long as your fingernail grows in one second
The illustration below has three visual examples of the size and the scale
of nanotechnology, showing just how small things at the nanoscale
actually are.
The Next Big Step
Nanotechnology
Computers
Automobiles
Railways
Steam Engines
(Middle Ages)
Time