Nanotechnology is the study of things that are very small.  To be more specific, it is the study of things that are less than 1 micrometer in some dimension (though some might say less than 0.1 micrometers).  Ah, the dreaded metric system.  Let’s break down some metric terminology. 

To give you more of a visual, a meter is about 3 feet, and a millimeter is a little more than the thickness of a penny.  As we get smaller than one-millimeter things get harder to visualize and this is another one of those things where the scale is difficult for us to imagine.  But let’s give this a whirl:

This is a rendering comparing two sizes.  The large cylinder through the center is about 100 micrometers in diameter which is about the diameter of a human hair.  The small little dot on the right is one micron.  Nanotechnology studies things that are smaller than that dot. 

Scientists are already working on producing materials in this extremely small range, including carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, nanofibers, nanoparticles and graphene.  As the great physicist Richard Feynman once said: “There is plenty of room at the bottom”. 

A great example of this is producing nanotechnologies is gold nanoparticles.

Synthesis of thiol-derivatised gold nanoparticles in a two-phase Liquid–Liquid system

This group of scientists produced a method to make gold nanoparticles between 1 and 3 nanometers in diameter.  To get a feel for how small that is, imagine that the Earth was the size of a basketball.  At that scale, a one-nanometer gold particle would be 5 centimeters (about 2 inches) or about the size of a small Christmas ornament.

Nanotechnology has already changed the world and touches your life every day without you knowing it.  From your smartphone, computer, and tablet, to your sunscreen, cosmetics, and medicine. Nanotechnology is all around us already.  In the next 100 years, nanotechnology, and material science engineering (designing and discovery of materials) will have a more significant effect on solving the problems set before us, than any other technology before it. 

Stay tuned for our next article on why nanotechnology is important.

Further info and Links:

Transcript of Richard Feynmans talk entitled “There is plenty of room at the bottom”

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