Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology

When Size Changes the Properties of Matter

A Research Course

Vita Harwood

Series "In Twelve Evenings" BOOK 44

What Do I Already Know About This?

Test your knowledge!

What happens to matter when it becomes so small that a handful of atoms can change the outcome?

Gold can change colour. Semiconductor particles can emit different colours depending on their size. Surfaces begin to matter more than they do in everyday objects. Electrons can cross barriers that classical physics would forbid. At the nanoscale, even familiar ideas such as material, device, and machine begin to behave differently.

Nanotechnology: When Size Changes the Properties of Matter is an accessible twelve-lesson introduction for readers who want to understand the nanoworld without starting with a university textbook or a catalogue of futuristic promises.

Across twelve evenings, you will discover:how small a nanometre really is;how scientists observe structures smaller than the wavelength of visible light;why nanoscale gold behaves differently from a piece of ordinary gold;where quantum physics enters the story;how nanostructures are built from the top down and from the bottom up;what makes graphene, fullerenes, and carbon nanotubes unusual;how nanoscale engineering already appears in computers, medicine, energy technologies, coatings, and membranes;why some surfaces make water droplets roll away;how scientists assess the safety of nanomaterials;and how close we really are to building useful structures molecule by molecule.