Nano materials took our technologies to a new level, opening up previously impossible options
Nano-science manipulate matter at the scale of atoms and molecules
“Nano” is a measurement – not an object. “Nanotechnology” speaks solely to scale. A “nanometre” (nm) equals one millionth of a millimetre. It takes ten atoms of hydrogen side-by-side to equal one nanometre. A DNA molecule is about 2.5 nm wide and red blood cell is in comparison a vast ±5,000 nm in diameter!
Nanotech’s “raw materials” are the chemical elements of the Periodic Table (which is the building blocks of everything), but with a very different set of properties. Key to understanding the unique power and potential of nanotech is that, at the nano-scale (below about 100 nanometres), a material’s properties change dramatically – these changes are called “quantum effects.” With only a reduction in size and no change in substance, materials exhibit new properties such as changes in electrical conductivity, elasticity, strength, colour and greater reactivity – characteristics that the very same substances do not exhibit at the micro or macro scales.