Nanotechnology at NIH

Nanotechnology is defined as the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, a scale at which unique properties of materials emerge that can be used to develop novel technologies and products. At the nanoscale, the physical, chemical, and biological properties of materials differ from the properties of matter either at smaller scales, such as atoms, or at larger scales that we use in everyday life such as millimeters or inches. Nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter only a few nanometers in size.

This page last reviewed on April 5, 2016