In 1889, the International System of Units (SI, short for Système International) was established.
It is based on seven basic units for measuring time, length, mass, electric current, temperature, quantity of material, and luminous intensity: second (s), meter (m), kilogram (kg), ampere (A), kelvin (K), mole (mol), and candela (cd).
Multiples and submultiples of the original unit are created by adding prefixes denoting integer powers of ten to these basic units.
The SI system additionally stipulates that negative powers of 10 should be expressed in Latin words (e.g., milli (m), micro (m), nano (n), and positive powers of 10 should be expressed in Greek terms (e.g., kilo (k), mega (M), giga (G) (G).
In 1958, the term nano was used to denote 109 SI units.
The term nano comes from the classical Latin nanus, or its ancient Greek etymon nanos (v o), which means dwarf, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Norio Taniguchi used the term nanotechnology to characterize his work on ultrafine machining and its promise for building sub micrometer devices in 1974.
This phrase now refers to a transformative technology capable of constructing, manipulating, and directing individual atoms, molecules, or their interactions on a nanoscale scale (1 to 100 nm).
While this use reflects the spirit of modern nanotechnology, it is dependent on the size of the items involved, which has a number of flaws.
For example, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has suggested expanding the scope to include materials with at least one internal or surface feature, where the start of size dependent phenomena varies from the characteristics of individual atoms and molecules.
By using nanoscale characteristics, such structures allow new applications and lead to better materials, electronics, and systems.
The science of tiny devices is known as nanoscience.
Essentially, nanoscience is a size where we can use both aspects to harness collective rather than individual characteristics of atoms and molecules — it is a scale where we can utilize both aspects to harness collective rather than individual properties of atoms and molecules.
As we'll see later, the new features of nanostructures are primarily defined by the aggregate behaviors of individual building pieces.
Figure below depicts a range of items with length scales ranging from 0.1 nanometers to one centimeter.
On the right side of this image, an enlarged view of a few nanoscale (1 to 100 nm) items involved in the development of nanotechnology is displayed.
~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan
You May Also Want To Read More About Nano Technology here.
