Trying Nano On For Size: Nanotechnology developments have started to dwarf design apprehension

摘要

One billionth of a meter? What good can come of something so small? The term nanotechnology involves any technology that pertains to small matter - approximately 100 nm or smaller to be more exact, although no standard measurement has been technically delineated as such. The word can also be used to refer to the application of it: the study and building of devices on the nanometer scale, meaning built from single atoms and molecules. (To put a nanometer into a more fathomable context, the diameter of a DNA double helix is 2 nm.) Yet no matter how infinitely miniscule a nanoparticle may be, enough of them may add up to making a big impact on the product design and development community.