NANOTECHNOLOGY

LECTURE (1)
Dr.Suhad A.Yasin
Nanotechnology is the study of extremely small structures.

The prefix “nano” is a Greek word which means “dwarf ”.

The word “nano” means very small.

Nanotechnology deals with materials in the size of (0.1 to 100 nm).

Nanotechnology works on matter at dimensions in the nanometer scale length (1-

100 nm), and thus can be used for a broad range of applications.
 History of Nanotechnology
- The development in the field of nanotechnology started in 1958 and the various stages of development
have been summarized :
Father of Nanotechnology

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 What is a nanometer?

 A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.

 The prefix “nano” means “one billionth”, or 10-9, in the
international system for units of weights and measures.
 The abbreviation for nanometer is "nm."

 In general, nanomaterials are materials whose external

dimensions are in the nanoscale (usually 1–100 nm) or
those who have a nanoscale internal structure/surface.

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 Definition of Nanotechnology is given by the US National Nanotechnology
Initiative (NNI) as:

(i) Research and technology development at the atomic, molecular or

macromolecular levels, approximately 1–100 nano-meters in length.

(i) Creation and use of structures, devices, and systems that have novel properties
and functions because of their small and intermediate size.

(i) Ability to control or manipulate on the atomic scale.

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The following fig shows the approximate comparison of nanometer scale.

Fig : Comparison of Nanoscale

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How small is the nanoscale? Here are a few comparisons:

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Research on nanomaterials is driven by two motivating factors:

1) They exhibit interesting properties at nanometer size scale which

is different from bulk material and

2) Applications of these properties in devices

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Picture representing the relative size of the various naturally occurring objects/species and artificial materials
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