A Quick Intro to The World of Nanotechnology
To start off, let’s talk about a simple sentence that defines the word “Nanotechnology”. Nanotechnology is the study and application of extremely small things, at the nanoscale level, used in many industries in the world.
Deeper Into Nanotech
Nanotechnology is the branch of technology that deals with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometers, especially the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules. In short, it’s a technology that operates at the nanoscale. One nanometer (nm) is measured at one billionth (10–9) of a meter, and the convention is to assign the term “nanotechnology” to technology that operates on a scale of 1 to 100 nm.
History Of Nanotechnology
The ideas and concepts behind nanoscience and nanotechnology started with a talk entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) on December 29, 1959, long before the term nanotechnology was used. In his talk, Feynman described a process in which scientists would be able to manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules. Over a decade later, in his explorations of ultraprecision machining, Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term nanotechnology. It wasn’t until 1981, with the development of the scanning tunnelling microscope that could “see” individual atoms, that modern nanotechnology began.
If you want to read more about the talk entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, go to this link: https://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/53/07803108/0780310853.pdf
How We Use It Everyday/Nanosensors
Nanosensors are types of sensors that come under the category of nanotechnology. Nanosensors are types of sensors that are used to detect the existence of nanoparticles and monitor physical characteristics like temperature on the nanoscale. Nanosensors work by monitoring electrical changes in the sensor materials. Nanosensors have many applications like monitoring physical parameters such as temperature and medical purposes. The main fields that nanosensors are used for are agriculture and biomedicines. Some examples that nanosensors are used in daily lives are sensors are used in the road to detect cars at traffic lights and there are also sensors that measure the water level in your washing machine.
Future Applications
Now that we know what nanotechnology is, the history behind it, how we use it in everyday life, and what nanosensors are, we can think about the future of nanotech. One big industry in the world, where nanotechnology can be applies in the medical/healthcare industry. One application of nanotechnology in medicine currently being developed involves employing nanoparticles to deliver drugs, heat, light or other substances to specific types of cells (such as cancer cells). In the field of medicine, nanotechnology is used for diagnosis of the disease, cancer therapy, delivering drugs at the disease site through nanobots and manufacturing personalized medicine for a specific type of disease. To put it in easier words, nanobots are like doctors inside your body.
