WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY ?
➢ Manipulation of matter with at least one dimension
sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale,
commonly known as the nanoscale.
• The definition of nanotechnology is inclusive of all
types of research and technologies that deal with
these special properties.
• It is therefore common to see the plural form
"nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies"
to refer to the broad range of research and
applications whose common trait is size.
( 01 )
THE ORIGIN FOR NANOTECHNOLOGY
( 02 )
➢ The concepts that seeded nanotechnology were first
discussed in 1959 by physicist Richard Feynman in his
talk There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, in which
he described the possibility of synthesis via direct
manipulation of atoms.
➢ The term "nano-technology" was first used by Norio
Taniguchi in 1974, though it was not widely known.
Inspired by Feynman's concepts, K. Eric Drexler used
the term "nanotechnology" in his 1986 book Engines of
Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, which
proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler" that
would be able to build a copy of itself and of other
items of arbitrary complexity with atomic control
➢ Also in 1986, Drexler co-founded The Foresight
Institute (with which he is no longer affiliated) to help
increase public awareness and understanding of
nanotechnology concepts and implications.
In the 1980s, two major breakthroughs sparked the
growth of nanotechnology in the modern era. First,
the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in
1981 which enabled visualization of individual atoms
and bonds, and was successfully used to manipulate
individual atoms in 1989
( 03 )
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS
• Nanotechnology is the science and engineering of
functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers
both current work and concepts that are more
advanced. In its original sense, nanotechnology refers
to the projected ability to construct items from the
bottom up, using techniques and tools being
developed today to make complete, high-
performance products.
• One nanometer (nm) is one billionth, or 10−9, of a
meter. By comparison, typical carbon–carbon bond
lengths, or the spacing between these atoms in
a molecule, are in the range 0.12–0.15 nm, and
a DNA double-helix has a diameter around 2 nm. On
the other hand, the smallest cellular life forms, the
bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma, are around
200 nm in length. By convention, nanotechnology is
taken as the scale range 1 to 100 nm following the
definition used by the National Nanotechnology
Initiative in the US. The lower limit is set by the size of
atoms (hydrogen has the smallest atoms, which are
approximately a quarter of a nm kinetic diameter)
since nanotechnology must build its devices from
atoms and molecules. The upper limit is more or less
( 04 )
arbitrary but is around the size below which the
phenomena not observed in larger structures start to
become apparent and can be made use of in the
nano device. These new phenomena make
nanotechnology distinct from devices that are merely
miniaturized versions of an
equivalent macroscopic device; such devices are on a
larger scale and come under the description
of microtechnology.
( 05 )
NANOMATERIALS
( 06 )
The nanomaterials field includes subfields that develop or
study materials having unique properties arising from their
nanoscale dimensions.
• Interface and colloid science has given rise to many
materials that may be useful in nanotechnology, such as
carbon nanotubes and other fullerenes, and various
nanoparticles and nanorods. Nanomaterials with fast ion
transport are related to nanoionics and nanoelectronics.
• Nanoscale materials can also be used for bulk applications;
most present commercial applications of nanotechnology
are of this flavor.
• Progress has been made in using these materials for
medical applications; see Nanomedicine.
• Nanoscale materials such as nanopillars are sometimes
used in solar cells which combats the cost of
traditional silicon solar cells.
• Development of applications incorporating
semiconductor nanoparticles to be used in the next
generation of products, such as display technology, lighting,
solar cells and biological imaging; see quantum dots.
• Recent application of nanomaterials include a range
of biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering, drug
delivery, antibacterials and biosensors
( 07 )
