The modern era of nanotechnology has its
seeds sown by renowned physicist Richard P.
Feyman in 1959 with his famous talk “There’s
plenty of Room at the Bottom,” In this speech he
talked about manipulating and controlling things
on a small scale.1 The term “Nanotechnology”
was introduced by a Japanese Scientist
Norio Taniguchi. The further development of
nanotechnology is mainly attributed to the work
of German theoretical physicist K. Eric Drexler
who used the word “nanotechnology” in his
1986 book “Engines of Creation: The Coming
Era of Nanotechnology”.
Nanotechnology is defined by National
Nanotechnology Intiative of United States
is the manipulation of matter with at least
one dimension lying in the range of 1 to 100
nanometer Science underlying nanotechnology
is called as nanoscience. Nanoscience is the
study of structures and materials on the scale of
nanometer. The term nano refers to 10-9 i.e. one
billionth of something. It can be ascribed to any
unit of measurement. Thus one nanometer (nm)
means one billionth of a meter i.e. 10-9 m. One
nanometer is on the scale of atomic diameter.
Just to compare, human hair is about 100, 000
nm thick.2
Basically nanotechnology deals with both
natural and artificial structures on nanometer
scale. This is a technology which is capable
of manipulating single atoms and molecules.
Various fields of science such as surface
science, organic chemistry, molecular biology,
semiconductor physics, microfabrication etc.
come under the umbrella of nanotechnology
with wide applications e.g. in nanomedicine,
nanoelectronics, biomaterials, energy
production, and cosmetics etc.