NANO-SCOPE
Beyond miniaturisation

Did you watch the movie ‘Spider Man’, that recently set the box office on fire? No, I am not about to begin yet another ‘super hero’ story. This is a story of the super technology that was used innovatively in this film, Yes, I am talking about Nanotechnology...

Yardstick
The members of the world of Nanotechnology are things smaller than 100 nanometers. Sounds common? Just wait … the length of one nanometer is spanned by 3-10 atoms! Still wondering how small can that be? Let me help.

The diameter of a human hair is about 20,000 nm wide and a smoke particle is about 1,000 nm in diameter!!! This means that Nanotechnology deals with things that are more than 200 times smaller than your single hair strand! Exciting isn’t it?

Naming
Nanotechnology was first mentioned (in concepts) by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting on December 29, 1959.The term ‘nanotechnology’ was defined by Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi in 1974 as “‘Nano-technology’ mainly consists of the processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by one atom or one molecule.” Dr. Eric Drexler explored the basic idea of this definition in depth in 1980s.

The term ‘nanotechnology’ is now used for ‘anything smaller than microtechnology,’ (that are nanoscale in size). But, in its original sense, ‘nanotechnology’ refers to the ability to make complete and high performance nanoscale products, and bigger products from nanoscale components.

Nano-nature
There are two ways to engineer Nanomaterials: Top-down approach (a bulk material is reduced to nanoscale size) and Bottom-up approach (larger structures are built or grown atom by atom or molecule by molecule).

When materials are engineered and reduced to the nanoscale, they may suddenly show very different properties compared to what they show on a macroscale. For example, an opaque substance may become transparent (like copper); solids may turn into liquids at room temperature (gold); stable materials may turn combustible (aluminum); insulators may become conductors (silicon) or inert materials may become catalysts (platinum)!

Another fascinating fact is that as the nanoparticle gets smaller, its volume decreases, while its surface area increases proportionately. Its electronic structure changes, and it becomes a more efficient catalyst!

Nanostructures
The number of dimensions of the nanoscale determines the type of nanostructure.

Nanotextured surfaces are one-dimensional on the nanoscale. The thickness of the surface of a nanotextured object is between 0.1 and 100 nm.

Nanotubes are two-dimensional on the nanoscale. The diameter of the tube is between 0.1 and 100nm and its length could be much greater.

Spherical nanoparticles are three-dimensional and between 0.1 and 100 nm in each spatial dimension.

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