What exactly does nano mean?

Nanotechnology, also known as nanotechnology, is a technology for making matter from individual atoms and molecules. Nanotechnology is a technique for studying the properties and applications of materials with structural dimensions in the range of 1 nanometer to 100 nanometers.

After the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981, a discipline was born to study the world of molecules in the length of 1 to 100 nanometers, with the ultimate goal of constructing products with specific functions directly from atoms or molecules . Nanotechnology includes the following four main aspects:

1, nanomaterials: when the material to the nanometer scale, about 0.1-100 nanometers in this range of space, the performance of the material will undergo a sudden change, the emergence of special properties.

2, nano-dynamics: mainly micro-mechanics and micro-motors, or always known as micro-electro-mechanical systems for micro-sensors and actuators with transmission machinery, fiber-optic communication systems, special electronic equipment, medical and diagnostic instruments, and so on.

3, nanobiology and nanopharmacology: such as in the mica surface with nano-particle degree of colloidal gold fixed dna particles, in the silica surface of the fork-finger shaped electrodes to do the test of interactions between biomolecules, phospholipids and fatty acids bilayer planar biofilm, the fine structure of the dna and so on.

4, nanoelectronics: including nanoelectronic devices based on quantum effects, optical/electrical properties of nanostructures, characterization of nanoelectronic materials, as well as atomic manipulation and atomic assembly.

Extended information

Nanotechnology was born in the late 1980s, the main meaning is the nanometer size range to understand and transform nature. Nanotechnology is now developing rapidly, especially nanotechnology through 3D printing, the use of "additive manufacturing" approach, the raw materials needed for industrial production can be reduced to 1/10 of the traditional way, the future development of manufacturing will play a huge role in promoting.

Physicist Richard Feynman as early as 1959 made the assertion that in the material "there is still a lot of space at the bottom". This conclusion revealed for the first time the possibility of assembling objects "from the bottom up," based on individual molecules and atoms. With the advent of the electron scanning tunneling microscope in 1981, nanoscientists discovered that matter has "supernatural" properties at the nanoscale. 

Guided by quantum theory, the scientific and technical physics community began to focus on exploring the idea that between the micro and macro worlds, there is a very different "mesoscopic world," a physical world with scales ranging from about 0.1 to 100 nanometers. The real development of nanotechnology is only 30 years old, but its adaptability, convergence effect and super properties in functional applications have permeated all fields of science and technology and industry today.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Nanotechnology

People's Daily News - People's Daily Science and Technology View: Nanotechnology reshapes future production methods