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Nanoengineering is the practice of engineering on the nanoscale. It derives its name from the nanometre, a unit of measurement equalling one billionth of a meter.
Nanoengineering is largely a synonym for nanotechnology, but emphasizes the engineering rather than the pure science aspects of the field.
The first nanoengineering program was started at the University of Toronto within the Engineering Science program as one of the options of study in the final years. In 2003, the Lund Institute of Technology started a program in Nanoengineering. In 2004, the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University at Albany, SUNY was founded as the first of its kind in the United States. The college later merged with SUNY Poly, but will rejoin the University at Albany in 2023. In 2005, the University of Waterloo established a unique program which offers a full degree in Nanotechnology Engineering. [2] Louisiana Tech University started the first program in the U.S. in 2005. In 2006 the University of Duisburg-Essen started a Bachelor and a Master program NanoEngineering. [3] Unlike early NanoEngineering programs, the first NanoEngineering Department in the world, offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees, was established by the University of California, San Diego in 2007. In 2009, the University of Toronto began offering all Options of study in Engineering Science as degrees, bringing the second nanoengineering degree to Canada. Rice University established in 2016 a Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering (MSNE). DTU Nanotech - the Department of Micro- and Nanotechnology - is a department at the Technical University of Denmark established in 1990.
In 2013, Wayne State University began offering a Nanoengineering Undergraduate Certificate Program, which is funded by a Nanoengineering Undergraduate Education (NUE) grant from the National Science Foundation. The primary goal is to offer specialized undergraduate training in nanotechnology. Other goals are: 1) to teach emerging technologies at the undergraduate level, 2) to train a new adaptive workforce, and 3) to retrain working engineers and professionals. [4]
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing properties of matter. This definition of nanotechnology includes all types of research and technologies that deal with these special properties. It is common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to research and applications whose common trait is scale. An earlier understanding of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabricating macroscale products, now referred to as molecular nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology education involves a multidisciplinary natural science education with courses such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, and molecular biology. It is being offered by many universities around the world. The first program involving nanotechnology was offered by the University of Toronto's Engineering Science program, where nanotechnology could be taken as an option.
James Kazimierz Gimzewski is a Scottish physicist of Polish descent who pioneered research on electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules and light emission using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM).
Nanobiotechnology, bionanotechnology, and nanobiology are terms that refer to the intersection of nanotechnology and biology. Given that the subject is one that has only emerged very recently, bionanotechnology and nanobiotechnology serve as blanket terms for various related technologies.
Nanochemistry is an emerging sub-discipline of the chemical and material sciences that deals with the development of new methods for creating nanoscale materials. The term "nanochemistry" was first used by Ozin in 1992 as 'the uses of chemical synthesis to reproducibly afford nanomaterials from the atom "up", contrary to the nanoengineering and nanophysics approach that operates from the bulk "down"'. Nanochemistry focuses on solid-state chemistry that emphasizes synthesis of building blocks that are dependent on size, surface, shape, and defect properties, rather than the actual production of matter. Atomic and molecular properties mainly deal with the degrees of freedom of atoms in the periodic table. However, nanochemistry introduced other degrees of freedom that controls material's behaviors by transformation into solutions. Nanoscale objects exhibit novel material properties, largely as a consequence of their finite small size. Several chemical modifications on nanometer-scaled structures approve size dependent effects.
Nanomanufacturing is both the production of nanoscaled materials, which can be powders or fluids, and the manufacturing of parts "bottom up" from nanoscaled materials or "top down" in smallest steps for high precision, used in several technologies such as laser ablation, etching and others. Nanomanufacturing differs from molecular manufacturing, which is the manufacture of complex, nanoscale structures by means of nonbiological mechanosynthesis.
The history of nanotechnology traces the development of the concepts and experimental work falling under the broad category of nanotechnology. Although nanotechnology is a relatively recent development in scientific research, the development of its central concepts happened over a longer period of time. The emergence of nanotechnology in the 1980s was caused by the convergence of experimental advances such as the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981 and the discovery of fullerenes in 1985, with the elucidation and popularization of a conceptual framework for the goals of nanotechnology beginning with the 1986 publication of the book Engines of Creation. The field was subject to growing public awareness and controversy in the early 2000s, with prominent debates about both its potential implications as well as the feasibility of the applications envisioned by advocates of molecular nanotechnology, and with governments moving to promote and fund research into nanotechnology. The early 2000s also saw the beginnings of commercial applications of nanotechnology, although these were limited to bulk applications of nanomaterials rather than the transformative applications envisioned by the field.
Nanotechnology is impacting the field of consumer goods, several products that incorporate nanomaterials are already in a variety of items; many of which people do not even realize contain nanoparticles, products with novel functions ranging from easy-to-clean to scratch-resistant. Examples of that car bumpers are made lighter, clothing is more stain repellant, sunscreen is more radiation resistant, synthetic bones are stronger, cell phone screens are lighter weight, glass packaging for drinks leads to a longer shelf-life, and balls for various sports are made more durable. Using nanotech, in the mid-term modern textiles will become "smart", through embedded "wearable electronics", such novel products have also a promising potential especially in the field of cosmetics, and has numerous potential applications in heavy industry. Nanotechnology is predicted to be a main driver of technology and business in this century and holds the promise of higher performance materials, intelligent systems and new production methods with significant impact for all aspects of society.
Nanometrology is a subfield of metrology, concerned with the science of measurement at the nanoscale level. Nanometrology has a crucial role in order to produce nanomaterials and devices with a high degree of accuracy and reliability in nanomanufacturing.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to nanotechnology:
Nanomechanics is a branch of nanoscience studying fundamental mechanical properties of physical systems at the nanometer scale. Nanomechanics has emerged on the crossroads of biophysics, classical mechanics, solid-state physics, statistical mechanics, materials science, and quantum chemistry. As an area of nanoscience, nanomechanics provides a scientific foundation of nanotechnology.
Green nanotechnology refers to the use of nanotechnology to enhance the environmental sustainability of processes producing negative externalities. It also refers to the use of the products of nanotechnology to enhance sustainability. It includes making green nano-products and using nano-products in support of sustainability.
The College of Nanotechnology, Science, and Engineering is part of the University at Albany, SUNY in Albany, New York. Founded in 2004 at the University at Albany, SUNY, the college underwent rapid expansion in the late-2000s and early-2010s before merging with the SUNY Institute of Technology in 2014. The college rejoined the University at Albany in 2023. The college was the first college in the United States devoted to nanotechnology.
DNA nanotechnology is the design and manufacture of artificial nucleic acid structures for technological uses. In this field, nucleic acids are used as non-biological engineering materials for nanotechnology rather than as the carriers of genetic information in living cells. Researchers in the field have created static structures such as two- and three-dimensional crystal lattices, nanotubes, polyhedra, and arbitrary shapes, and functional devices such as molecular machines and DNA computers. The field is beginning to be used as a tool to solve basic science problems in structural biology and biophysics, including applications in X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of proteins to determine structures. Potential applications in molecular scale electronics and nanomedicine are also being investigated.
Mark Christopher Hersam is a professor of Chemistry and Materials Science Engineering at Northwestern University (2000–present) who, according to the National Science Foundation, has made "major breakthrough[s]" in the field of nanotechnology. He is a 2014 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award and a 1996 Marshall Scholar. He is also an Executive Editor of ACS Nano. As of October 2023, he has been cited over 68,000 times according to Google Scholar.
The applications of nanotechnology, commonly incorporate industrial, medicinal, and energy uses. These include more durable construction materials, therapeutic drug delivery, and higher density hydrogen fuel cells that are environmentally friendly. Being that nanoparticles and nanodevices are highly versatile through modification of their physiochemical properties, they have found uses in nanoscale electronics, cancer treatments, vaccines, hydrogen fuel cells, and nanographene batteries.
Alan T. Charlie Johnson is an American physicist and a professor in physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson currently serves as the founding executive editor of the scientific journal AIP Advances and the co-founder of Graphene Frontiers, LLC.
Virus nanotechnology is the use of viruses as a source of nanoparticles for biomedical purposes. Viruses are made up of a genome and a capsid; and some viruses are enveloped. Most virus capsids measure between 20-500 nm in diameter. Because of their nanometer size dimensions, viruses have been considered as naturally occurring nanoparticles. Virus nanoparticles have been subject to the nanoscience and nanoengineering disciplines. Viruses can be regarded as prefabricated nanoparticles. Many different viruses have been studied for various applications in nanotechnology: for example, mammalian viruses are being developed as vectors for gene delivery, and bacteriophages and plant viruses have been used in drug delivery and imaging applications as well as in vaccines and immunotherapy intervention.
This glossary of nanotechnology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to nanotechnology, its sub-disciplines, and related fields.
