Nanotechnology

What is nanotechnology? Well, a report that was put together by a combination of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering that came out last summer, identified two topics. Nano-science is the study of the phenomenon and the manipulation of materials at atomic, molecular, and macromolecular scales, where properties differ significantly from those on a larger scale. Nanotechnologies are the design characterization, production, and application of structures , devices, and systems by controlling shape and size at the nanometer scale. I'll talk a little bit more in a moment about what a nanometer is, but loosely speaking people think of nanotechnologies as being sort of a hundred nanometers or less.