Nanotechnology

Imagine a world where microscopic medical implants patrol our arteries, diagnosing ailments and fighting diseases. Where military battle-suits deflect explosions, where computer chips are not bigger than specks of dust.

Many incredible claims have been made about the future’s nanotechnology cal applications, but what exactly does nano mean, and why has controversy plagued this emerging technology?

Nanotechnology is science and engineering at the scale of atoms and molecules. it is the manipulation and use of materials and devices so tiny that nothing can be built any smaller.

Nanomaterials are typically between 0.1 and 100 nanometers (nm) in size with 1 nm being equlent to one billionth of a meter.

This is the scale at which the basic functions of the biological world operate and materials of this size display unusual physical and chemical properties. These profoundly different properties are due to an increase in surface area compared to volume as particles get smaller – and also the grip of weird quantum effects at the atomic scale.

The  idea of nanotechnology was born in 1959 when physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture exploring the idea  of building things at the atomic  and molecular scale. He imagined the entire Encyclopedia Britannica written on the head of a pin. However, experimental nanotechnology didn’t come into its own until 1981 when IBM scientist in Zurich, Switzerland, built the first Scanning tunneling Microscope.