Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology comprises technological developments on the nanometer scale, usually 0.1 to 100 nm. (One nanometer equals one thousandth of a micrometer or one millionth of a millimeter.) The term has sometimes been applied to microscopic technology. This article discusses nanotechnology, nanoscience, and "molecular nanotechnology."

Interdisciplinary ensemble

A definitive feature of nanotechnology is that it constitutes an interdisciplinary ensemble of several fields of the natural sciences that are, in and of themselves, actually highly specialized. Thus, physics plays an important role?alone in the construction of the microscope used to investigate such phenomena but above all in the laws of quantum mechanics. Achieving a desired material structure and certain configurations of atoms brings the field of chemistry into play. In medicine, the specifically targeted deployment of nanoparticles promises to help in the treatment of certain diseases. Here, science has reached a point at which the boundaries separating discrete disciplines become blurred, and it is for precisely this reason that nanotechnology is also referred to as a convergent technology.

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