Nanotechnology
Most benefits of nanotechnology depend on the fact that it is possible to tailor the essential structures of materials at the nanoscale to achieve specific properties, thus greatly extending the well-used toolkits of materials science. Using nanotechnology, materials can effectively be made to be stronger, lighter, more durable, more reactive, more sieve-like, or better electrical conductors, among many other traits.
It’s hard to imagine just how small nanotechnology is. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or 10⁻⁹ of a meter. Here are a few illustrative examples:
- There are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch.
- A sheet of newspaper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.
- On a comparative scale, if a marble were a nanometer, then one meter would be the size of the Earth.
Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve the ability to see and control individual atoms and molecules. Everything on Earth is made up of atoms—the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the buildings and houses we live in, and even our own bodies.
But something as small as an atom is impossible to see with the naked eye. In fact, it’s impossible to see with the microscopes typically used in high school science classes. The microscopes needed to see things at the nanoscale were invented relatively recently, about 30 years ago. Once scientists had the right tools, such as the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and the atomic force microscope (AFM), the age of nanotechnology was born.
The term nanotechnology was used regarding subsequent work with related graphene tubes (called carbon nanotubes, sometimes referred to as Bucky tubes), which suggested potential applications for nanoscale electronics and devices.
Today’s scientists and engineers are finding a wide variety of ways to deliberately make materials at the nanoscale to take advantage of their enhanced properties, such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of the light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity than their larger-scale counterparts.
Buckminsterfullerene (C₆₀), also known as the buckyball, is a representative member of the carbon structures known as fullerenes. Fullerenes were discovered in 1985 by Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl, who were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery.
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