Nanotechnology/Introduction
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Contents |
[edit] Introduction to Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology encompasses numerous fields of the natural sciences - broadly speaking anything with a dimension under 100nm can be termed 'nanostructured' and these days it also seems that anything that fit that definition will be termed nanostructured.
The vision of nanotechnology to control matter on the atomic scale both provides hopes for huge technological advances providing cures for diseases and high increases in the performance of the technology we use around us - and on the other hand scares us with still rather unknown health effects of many new types of nanoparticles and science fiction style 'Nanites' that will reproduce and take over the world. 'Nanites' seem a very distant possibility - and before anyone would even come close to create anything 'nano' that could reproduce in a very controlled environment, technology itself will probably have started moving in quite a new direction for a new 'era'.
This opensource handbook on nanoscience and nanotechnology is divided into sections that each deal with a field of nanotechnology and describes this in greater detail as you go into subsections.
- Part 1: INTRODUCTION - giving a general overview
- Part 2: SEEING 'NANO' - how to observe what is going on on the nanoscale
- Part 3: PHYSICS -ON THE NANOSCALE - how do things move and what are the important forces on the nanoscale
- Part 4: NANOMATERIALS - the typical nanostructures and their functionality
- Part 5: NANOSYSTEMS - fundamental electronic, optical, mechanical, and fluidic systems that can be made with nanostructures.
- Part 6: NANOENGINEERING - how to make nanostructures integrated into useful devices.
- Part 7: NANO-BIO PRIMER - an important part of nanotechnology is to interface with living organisms.
- Part 8: ENVIRONMENTAL NANOTECHNOLOGY - and should we worry about nanotechnology? Used wisely it can help improve our lives and the environment, and used ignorantly it can very likey cause damage as all other technologies.
Each part contains a brief introduction and overview, and numerous chapters with detailed information that each can become a whole book on their subject. We hope to be able to span a wide range of readers, so anyone who would like to know more about nanotechnology can use the book and dive deeper into the detail as they wish.
[edit] References
See also notes on editing this book Nanotechnology/About#How_to_contribute.
