Like every atom is at a nano scale, why isnt it already called nanotechnology? What do they do to make something referred as ‘Nano’.
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Every atom is at the “nano” scale, but when I assemble a bicycle, I’m not manipulating it at the atomic scale.
There may be a slightly more specialized answer to this, but the real answer is that nanotechnology builds/manipulates on “nano” scales.
Chemists and engineers have a lot of sneaky tricks to build complex things on very tiny scales. Take your computer, for instance. The transistors inside there are so small that they are only several atoms across. Pretty much reaching the limit of what physics allows. How are they built? Photolithography. The process of using light to essentially carve out these structures. You can also use a sort of 3D printing. In the medical world, we can edit DNA and build pharmaceutical molecules using a bunch of tricks, exploiting chemical reactions or other things your body already does.
Technology implies non-natural. Atoms are natural particles meaning individual atoms aren’t considered technology in the nanotechnology sense. Not sure what you’re referencing here when you say that atoms are nanotechnology.
What makes something “nano” in this sense is its length scale. The metric prefix nano- is used to denote something that is one-one billionth of the standard measure. For instance, the standard length scale in metric is the meter. One-one billionth of a meter is called a nano-meter. For reference, the diameter of a human hair is usually on the scale of about 20 micrometers which is about 20,000 time wider than a nanometer. So nanometers are very small.
Nanotechnology is a term used by scientists to refer to any technology that involves the use of nano particles. Nano particles are defined as any particles that have at least one dimension on the nano scale. That can be nano dots (photolithographically generated particles, as mentioned by another commenter), nano wires (very skinny wires), even thin films that have a thickness on the nano scale.
Yes atoms are on the nano scale too, but naturally placed atoms are not considered “technology”. I suppose for something to be considered “nanotechnology” it needs to be both manipulated into a functional structure that has some technological use or application, and also have a dimension on the nano scale.
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