Since the 90s of the last century and reaching its peak of popularity after the 2000s, nanotechnology has been one of the foremost places in modern science. What does this name mean, what does nanotechnology do, what is it - nanometer? The answers to these and other questions are given in the article.
The concept of nanometer
A nanometer is a unit of length. Many people, due to the rapid development of nanotechnology in recent years, confuse this concept with a small body, which is called a nano-object. No, this is not an object, but a measure of the distance in space. The word "nanometer" itself has Greek roots. It consists of two parts: nano - with Greek. "dwarf" and meter - unit of measure.
In the SI system, the word "nano-" is a prefix that can be used before absolutely any physical unit of measurement. For example, nanokilograms, nanokandela and so on. This prefix means that you need to reduce the value to which it is applied by 9 orders of magnitude.
A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, that is, 1 nm = 10 -9 m. From this ratio it turns out that 1 meter contains 10 9 (billion) nanometers. Knowing that 1 millimeter is 1000 times smaller than a meter, we find that the nanometer in millimeters is written as 1 nm = 10 -6 mm. This means that a nanometer is a million times smaller than a millimeter.
Another small unit of distance that is closest to a nanometer is Angstrom. A nanometer is 10 times larger than it.
Nanotechnology is the reason for the popularity of nanometer
Nanotechnology is understood as an interdisciplinary modern science engaged in the research and manufacture of materials whose structural units have scales from 1 to 100 nm. The term "nanotechnology" was first proposed by the Japanese scientist Norio Taniguchi in 1974.
The noted scales with which nanotechnologists work are not chosen by chance. A value of 1 nanometer is one order of magnitude larger than the size of an atom (the smallest hydrogen atom is somewhere 10 times smaller than a nanometer). The upper value (100 nm) is an approximate limit, beyond which the substance begins to demonstrate its usual physical properties.
Let us dwell in more detail on the upper boundary of nanoobjects (100 nm). When the elements of the system have an average size less than the marked value, they begin to exhibit quantum properties, which noticeably affects the behavior of the entire bulk material. This is a key point that needs to be understood, that is, nanotechnology is not just research on the nanometer scale, it is a science that studies completely different, new, previously unknown properties of matter. For example, gold nanoparticles can magnetize.
Nanotechnology represents a large number of modern narrow areas in science: this is the study of semiconductors, metal nanostructures, surface properties, molecular biology, medicine and others.
Nanometer Comparisons
As said, a nanometer is a very short distance. For a clearer idea of how small a nanometer is, here are two interesting comparisons:
- 1 nm is so many times less than 1 m, how much a soccer ball is smaller than our planet;
- on average, the beard of an adult man grows by 1 nm during the time that passes while he takes a razor and brings it to his face.
Interesting "nanometer" data
The length in nanometers is often used to measure the wave of electromagnetic radiation in the range from ultraviolet to infrared. So, light visible to humans has a wavelength in the range of 400 to 700 nm.
Nanotechnology is a science that studies inanimate nature. Indeed, the smallest bacterium has a size of 200 nm, which lies above the limit mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Our lungs are able to cleanse themselves of any solid particles whose size exceeds 200 nm. If foreign bodies are smaller than this value, then they can enter the bloodstream through the lungs, spread throughout the body and lead to dangerous diseases.
The thickness of a human hair lies far beyond the nanometer. Its typical dimensions are 70 microns (70 thousand nanometers).