Introduction to

Nanoscience and
Nanotechnology
LECTURE 3

Dr. Lutfiye Altay

Ege University
Mechanical Engineering Dept.
2019-2020 Spring
 Nano science: A New Day
The Nano science revolution will lead to…
➢ New areas of research .
➢ Better understanding of matter and interactions.
➢ New ways to tackle important problems in science.

By learning about an individual atom’s/molecule’s properties, we can put them

together in very well-defined ways to produce new materials with new and
amazing characteristics.
 The Smaller, The
Better
Cell phones are becoming tinier, laptops are getting lighter, optical
fiber is replacing thick bundles of copper telephone wire etc..

motivation for miniaturization multifunctionality

• A cell phone becomes part digital
camera, part music player
• A wristwatch keeps track of your
schedule and your heart rate
Less material
• Material costs money, it adds weight,
and it takes up space
• Smaller systems perform quicker because they have less mass and
therefore less inertia (the tendency of mass to resist acceleration).
This improved speed leads to products
that perform tasks faster

• fly can flap its wings much faster than a

bird
• Assembly robot in a factory might
perform 10 welds in a second, while an
enzyme in your body performs as many
as a million chemical operations in the
same amount of time
While the physical characteristics of miniaturized systems tend to
vary a great deal from macroscale systems, engineers have found
ways to effectively estimate how the characteristics of something will
change as its dimensions change.

These generalizations are known as the scaling laws, and they are
quite useful. Scaling affects the volume of an object and the way it
deals with forces, conducts electricity, and handles liquid flow etc..

At the nanoscale, modeling such physical behaviors means

highly complex calculations; the more accurate the model, the
more computationally demanding.

Scaling laws are hand calculations that can help orient

us to unfamiliar scales and highlight the ways a
smaller design might improve or inhibit performance.
Follow the board…