What is the meaning of “Nano” in
Nanotechnology?
Measurement
“Weights and measures may be ranked
among the necessaries of life to every
individual of human society.”
- John Quincy Adams, 1821
The International System of Units (SI) or
Metric System
• Provides a logical and interconnected framework for all
measurements in science, industry, and commerce.
• The unit of length in the metric system is the meter (m)
– The meter was originally described as the a portion of the earth’s
circumference.
– Today the meter is described as the length of the path traveled by
light in a vacuum during 1/299,792,458 of a second.
– Measures for volume (liter) and mass (gram) are derived from the
unit of length, thus relating basic units of the system to each other.
The Metric System is a Decimal
Based System
• Units for a given quantity, such as length or mass, are
related by factors of 10 and are expressed in a decimal
system.
• Prefixes, added to a unit name, create larger or smaller
units by factors that are powers of 10.
• Calculations involve moving the decimal point to the
right or the left.
Common Metric Prefixes
• If you move to the right on the following chart, the
decimal moves to the right. If you move to the left,
the decimal moves to the left.
• The bottom row shows 7 ways to express the
distance of 1 meter.
Factor
103
102
101
100
10-1
10-2
10-3
Common
prefix
kilo
hecto
deca
meter,
liter, or
gram
deci
centi
milli
0.001
0.01
0.1
1.
10.
100.
1000.
Use the following metric prefixes when
measuring very small quantities
milli = 10-3 or 0.001
micro = 10-6 or 0.000 001
nano = 10-9 or 0.000 000 001
pico = 10-12 or 0.000 000 000 001
• Therefore 1 nanometer is one billionth of a meter or
1 meter is made up of a billion nanometers
Use the following metric prefixes when
measuring very large quantities
kilo = 103 or 1,000
mega = 106 or 1,000,000
giga = 109 or 1,000,000,000
tera = 1012 or 1,000,000,000,000
Natural Phenomena Occur
on Many Scales
• Some phenomena are so small magnifying glasses or
microscopes are used to view them. Others are so far away,
powerful telescopes must be used.
• We will start with a 109 meter viewing area and move to
a 10-9 viewing area.
• In each of the following pictures, the distance is measured
from the left side to the right side of the picture.
• The red box in the center of each picture represents the next
scaled image (power of 10) to be shown.
109 meters or 1,000,000,000 meters
This is the moon’s orbit around the Earth.
108 meters or 100,000,000 meters
107 meters or 10,000,000 meters
106 meters or 1,000,000 meters
105 meters or 100,000 meters
Mountain range on the border of Switzerland and France.
104 meters or 10,000 meters
Suburbs of Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border.
103 meters or 1,000 meters
CERN facility (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the Franco-Swiss border.
102 meters or 100 meters
CERN facility.
101 meters or 10 meters
Landscaping at CERN facility.
100 meter or 1 meter
10-1 meter or 0.1 meter
10-2 meter or 0.01 meter
10-3 meter or 0.001 meter
A fly’s eye is made of many facets, resembling a honeycomb.
10-4 meter or 0.0001 meter
A fly’s eye is made up hundreds of facets. Each facet has a lens with light sensitive
cells underneath. This image was taken with an electron Microscope.
10-5 meter or 0.00001 meter
In between the facets are bristles which give sensory input from the surface of the eye.
10-6 meter or 0.000001 meter
The bristles are shown to be fluted.
10-7 meter or 0.0000001 meter
Even more detail is shown of the bristle’s surface.
10-8 meter or 0.00000001 meter
At the center of the cell is a tightly coiled molecule called DNA containing
the genetic material needed to duplicate the fly.
10-9 meter or 0.000000001 meter
DNA nucleotide building blocks.
So what is Nanotechnology?
• It is the understanding and control of matter at
dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers (billionths
of a meter) where unique phenomena enable novel
applications.
– A nanometer is smaller than the wavelength of visible light
and one hundred thousandth the width of a human hair!
• It allows us to engineer functional materials, systems,
and devices at the molecular scale.