Welcome to the Nanotechnology Portal

A key principle behind entrepreneurial success is the development of a revolutionary technology or idea. When evaluating technologies that may drastically change our way of living, nanotechnology is often considered at the cutting edge. Nanotech has unleaseshed a storm that many believe will unveil the next industrial revolution. A technoloy that may replace or enhance all known technologies. "Nano" is Greek for dwarf and includes technological developments on the nanometer scale of 1 nanometre (one-billionth of a metre) to 100 nanometres. For reference, a human hair measures about 80,000 nanometres while ten hydrogen atoms in a row span one nanometre.

Nanotechnology has evolved from Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) which focused on mechanical components on the micrometre scale. The term Nanotechnology was coined by Professor Norio Taniguchi of the Tokyo Science University in 1974. He used it to describe the precision manufacture of materials with nanometre tolerances. It was popularized by Eric Drexler in the 1980's as he used nanotechnology to describe machines built on a molecular scale.

Today we see nanotechnology deployed in the design and manufacture of nanotubes, nanowires, in electron beam lithography, deep ultraviolet lithography, atomic layer deposition, focused ion beam machining, and molecular vapor deposition. The role of nanotechnology will only grow in the future with many diverse possible applications including space exploration.