• Molecular medicine & biotechnology
• Smaller, faster & cheaper electronic devices
• Advanced materials, precise standards, improved understanding of matter
• Indirect applications relating to the environment, energy, communications, travel, space exploration, etc.

More Definitions of Nanotechnology

"The manipulation, precision placement, measurement, modeling, and creation of sub-100 nanometer scale matter." - The Nanotech Report

"The ability to do things - measure, see, predict and make - on the scale of atoms and molecules. Traditionally, the nanotech realm is defined as being between 0.1 and 100 nanometers, a nanometer being one thousandth of a micron (micrometer), which is, in turn, one thousandth of a millimeter. Pretty small." - the NOR White Paper

"Nanotechnology is the creation of functional materials, devices and systems through control of matter on the nanometer length scale (1-100 nanometers), and exploitation of novel phenomena and properties (physical, chemical, biological) at that length scale." - Nanotechnology at NASA

"Research and technology development at the atomic, molecular or macromolecular levels, in the length scale of approximately 1 - 100 nanometer range, to provide a fundamental understanding of phenomena and materials at the nanoscale and to create and use structures, devices and systems that have novel properties and functions because of their small and/or intermediate size." - US NSET Definition of Nanotechnology, February 2000