Nanotechnology is a branch of science and technology that is involved the building of materials and devices - of the size of atoms and molecules, on an industrial scale. These days it's hard to imagine life without a Nanotechnology manufacturer, as it's used in numerous fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science and engineering.
The prefix "nano" comes from the Greek word "Nanos", meaning "a dwarf". The term "Nanotechnology" refers to a technology that works primarily with small things. The word nano has been used as a prefix in the scientific world to indicate one billionth. One term, 'nanometer,' means one billionth of a meter (unit of measurement that is 10-9 meter); this term is used commonly by top Nanotechnology companies.
You might have come across the term "nanoscience". It's important to distinguish between nanoscience and nanotechnology.
Nanoscience: a study of phenomena at the microscopic scale
Nanotechnology: it's the technology that is built using nanoscience
Ideas, theories and concepts related to nanotechnology started with a lecture/ symposium delivered by the venerated Physicist Richard Feynman - "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" at the American Physical Society meeting at the California Institute of Technology, 1959. Many years before the term nanotechnology was coined, Feynman described the process as one in which scientists could control individual atoms and molecules.
In the year 1974, Norio Taniguchi used the word Nanotechnology for the first time, while delivering a lecture that described, how the dimensional accuracy with which we make things had changed over time. He studied the developments in machining techniques over the period and applied the term nanotechnology to this.
Everything on earth is made of atoms, the smallest particle of any matter - our clothes, our food, our homes, and even our body. It's impossible to see an atom with the naked eye. Even if you use microscopes, it still is impossible to see an atom. Microscopes that could see things at the nanoscale were invented in 1980s.
The age of top nanotechnology companies was born when Scientists and top manufacturing companies started working on tools like scanning tunneling microscope and powerful atomic force microscope.
The modern era of nanoscience and nanotechnology is entirely new.
Today nanotechnology manufacturers, scientists, and engineers are finding new ways and methods to consciously make useful materials and products at the nanoscale - in order to help the human race move ahead faster and be better.
