The Janes Group Webpage

What is Nanotechnology?

To paraphrase the definition used in the US government's nanotechnology initiative, we can broadly define nanotechnology as a field developing structures, devices and assemblies with characteristic dimensions in the range of 1 to 100 nm.  In order to understand the significance of this, we need to understand what a nanometer is.

What's a Nanometer?

A nanometer is one billionth of a meter (a meter is approximately 3 feet). Another way to think about this is in terms of relative sizes.  Starting at the human scale, shrinking things by 1000X brings you to the size of a fruit fly (millimeters).  Shrinking another 1000X brings you to the size of a bacteria (microns).  Shrinking yet another 1000X gets you to the nano scale.