Chemical and biological technologies have been somewhat haphazardly manufacturing and assembling atomically precise devices on the nanometer scale (e.g. materials & food) for millenia. The latest addition to the nanotechnology band wagon is physics and engineering. The precise, mathematical nature of physics and engineering enables novel tools such as scanning probe microscopes and molecular engineering software. These tools are rapidly increasing our ability to organize atoms and molecules on a large enough scale to improve and develop:- 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
