Nanotechnology -Intro

Nanotechnology

An Introduction

Richard Feynman. The American physicist Richard Feynman lectured, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959, which is often held to have provided inspiration for the field of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is a field of research and innovation concerned with building 'things' - generally, materials and devices - on the scale of atoms and molecules. A nanometre is one-billionth of a metre: ten times the diameter of a hydrogen atom. The diameter of a human hair is, on average, 80,000 nanometres.

One application of nanotechnology in medicine currently being developed involves employing nanoparticles to deliver drugs, heat, light or other substances to specific types of cells, such as cancer cells. ... For example, nanoparticles that deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to cancer cells are under development.Various types of detecting elements, such as carbon nanotubes, zinc oxide nanowires or palladium nanoparticles can be used in nanotechnology-based sensors. Because of the small size of nanotubes, nanowires, or nanoparticles, a few gas molecules are sufficient to change the electrical properties of the sensing elements.The ideas and concepts behind nanoscience and nanotechnology started with a talk entitled “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom” by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) on December 29, 1959, long before the term nanotechnology was used.Out of three human studies, only one showed a passage of inhaled nanoparticles into the bloodstream. Materials which by themselves are not very harmful could betoxic if they are inhaled in the form of nanoparticles. The effects of inhaled nanoparticles in the body may include lung inflammation and heart problems.