Nano Meter
What are "Nano Meter" and "Nano Technology" ?
One nano meter is a unit of a length: 1nm = 1X10-9 m, or equivalent to 0.000 000 001m.
Perhaps it would be easier to visualize the ratio between 1 m and 1nm, it is roughly the size of the earth to three table-tennis balls. Nano technology is about new applications of the materials that have the length or diameters from the range of 1nm to less than 100nm.
Materials in this region will present some unusual physical properties than those of their counter parts. For example, increase in melting points, red shift or blue shift in electromagnetic wave absorption… etc. With these newly discovered properties, scientists and engineers open up a whole new chapter on the applications, perhaps a new industrial revolution has already started. Nano technology covers all area of our daily life including material science, environmental protection, life science, catalyst ...etc.
But why are there some physical characteristic shift in the materials in this region ?
The new physical property changes of the materials are due to the following reasons:
- extremely large surface area per unit weight;
- quantum effect;
- high ratio of nuclei exposure;
- macroscopic quantum tunneling, MQT;
- optical properties shift;
- change of magnetic properties, ...etc.