A Little Bit About Nanotechnology

Defining Nanotechnology A nanometer is small. Very small. To be precise, a typical sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometers thick. Nearly 50 years ago, Richard Feynman gave a famous speech [1] in which the idea of nanotechnology was first envisioned. In it, he famously asked, “What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them?” It took thirty years for microscopes to be developed that allowed that groundbreaking vision to be realized, allowing scientists to both see and manipulate matter at the atomic scale [2]. In 1999, President Clinton launched the National Nanotechnology Initiative – the first large-scale U.S. government investment in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology – a program whose budget has already tripled to roughly $1.5B per year.