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There’s plenty of room at the bottom.

Richard Feynman

Nanomaterials

1.1 Length Scales and Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology demands the ability to control features at the nanoscale (10−9 m),
and a variety of techniques have been developed recently that give humanity this
ability. From a fundamental science perspective, issues of physics and chemistry
must be addressed at these scales. Surface and boundary effects can dominate the re-
sponse. Many of the classical distinctions between mechanics, materials and physics
disappear in this range of length scales, and a new kind of thinking emerges that is
commonly called nanoscience (sometimes humorously interpreted as “very little
science”). The recent rapid development of nanoscience is the result of a new-found
ability to observe and control structure at small length and time scales, coupled with
the development of computational capabilities that are most effective at small scales.
It is useful to develop a physical idea of length scale, and Figure 1.1 shows the
range of length scales of common interest in mechanics and biology (the latter is in-
cluded because it allows one to develop a human sense of scale). Beginning at small
scales, features associated with atomic radii are on the order of 1 Å (one angstrom,
10−10 m) in size. The atomic lattice spacing in most crystals is of the order of 3 Å.
The diameter of a carbon nanotube is about 2 nm or 20 Å, and this correlates well
with the diameter of a double helix of DNA (which indicates, incidentally, that the
nanotube is a good approach to handling DNA). A tobacco mosaic virus is about
50 nm across (this corresponds approximately in scale with the typical radii of
curvature of the tips of nanomanipulators such as AFM probes). Grains in most
polycrystalline metals have sizes that range from about 1 μm to about 20 μm (grain
boundary thicknesses, to the extent that they can be defined, are typically <1 nm). A
number of bacteria (living organisms) are also about 1 μm in size, a reminder of the
remarkable sophistication of nature. Small-scale failure processes, such as the voids
developed in spallation, are typically of the order of 10 μm in separation. Many cells
in eukaryotic organisms are of this size-scale. Some of the most sophisticated small
devices in engineering, integrated circuit chips, are of the order of 1 cm in size (the
corresponding natural “device” might be a beetle). The author arrives on the scale
at about 1.8 m, while an M1A1 Abrams tank is about four times bigger. Some of

K.T. Ramesh, Nanomaterials, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-09783-1 1, 1


c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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Fig. 1.1 Length scales in mechanics and materials and in nature. The topics of interest to this book
cover a large part of this scale domain, but are controlled by features and phenomena at the nm
scale. Note the sophistication of natural materials and systems at very small length scales.