What is nanotechnology?
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It is true that nanotechnology is about creating things smaller than the eye can see, they don't necessarily have to be machines in the traditional sense.\n\nNanotechnology, rather, has become a scientific buzz-word used to describe phenomena on the nanoscale, 0.000000001 meters. What is this small? Well, atoms are generally 1/10th of a nanometer... So if you put a bunch of atoms together, you've got a nanometer.\n\nSome people think of nanotechnology just as making teeny machines (with gears and all), but the field is so much broader than that. Researcher of biological proteins often call their work nanotechnology. Really anything that involves surface interactions or self-assembly is nanotechnology.\n\nAnyway, check out quantum dots. According to Wikipedia, they've made it into Playstations.
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Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are cylindrical carbon molecules with novel properties that make them potentially useful in a wide variety of applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics, and other fields of materials science. They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat. Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized.\n\nA nanotube is a member of the fullerene structural family, which also includes buckyballs. Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape, a nanotube is cylindrical, with at least one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure. Their name is derived from their size, since the diameter of a nanotube is on the order of a few nanometers (approximately 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair), while they can be up to several micrometers in length. There are two main types of nanotubes: single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs).\n\nNanotubes are composed entirely of sp2 bonds, similar to those of graphite. This bonding structure, stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond, provides the molecules with their unique strength. Nanotubes naturally align themselves into "ropes" held together by Van der Waals forces. Under high pressure, nanotubes can merge together, trading some sp2 bonds for sp3 bonds, giving great possibility for producing strong, unlimited-length wires through high-pressure nanotube linking
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A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.  Nanotechnology is any technology which exploits phenomena and structures that can only occur at the nanometer scale, which is the scale of several atoms and small molecules.  There are proposed uses for this in many industries.  For example, nanobots could go into your bloodstream and promote healing like in sci-fi movies.
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Nanotechnology comprises technological developments on the nanometer scale, usually 0.1 to 100 nm (1/1,000 µm, or 1/1,000,000 mm). \nNanotechnology covers a wide range of industries, and therefore the potential benefits are also widespread. Telecommunications and Information technology could benefit in terms of faster computers and advanced data storage.\n\nFor the near-term, critics of nanotechnology point to the potential toxicity of new classes of nanosubstances that could adversely affect the stability of cell membranes or disturb the immune system when inhaled, digested or absorbed through the skin.\ninformation taken from the following link:(also, go there for additional info)
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Nanotechnology\n\nTechnology development at the atomic, molecular, or macromolecular range of approximately 1-100 nanometers to create and use structures, devices, and systems that have novel properties.\n\nOr to put it another way\n\nNanotechnology is a catch-all phrase for materials and devices that operate at the nanoscale. In the metric system of measurement, “Nano” equals a billionth and therefore a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. References to nano materials, nanoelectronics, nano devices and nanopowders simply mean the material or activity can be measured in nanometers. To appreciate the size, a human red blood cell is over 2,000 nanometers long, virtually outside the nanoscale range!\n \n  \n \nRecently, government and private institutions have devoted substantial research into finding potential valuable uses at this scale, as discussed below.
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Nanotechnology has a lot of scope\nIt can take artificial intelligience 2 new heights\nIt can completely dh world around us by creating Smart devices tht may also rival Human Brains\nSomething tht will surely get better with nanotechnology is Computer softwares & also huge memories could b stored in very tiny chips........the possibilities r endless\nSo keep Imagining
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When the term "nanotechnology" was independently coined and popularized by Eric Drexler, who at the time was unaware of Taniguchi's usage, it referred to a future manufacturing technology based on molecular machine systems. The premise was that molecular-scale biological analogies of traditional machine components demonstrated that molecular machines were possible, and that a manufacturing technology based on the mechanical functionality of these components (such as gears, bearings, motors, and structural members) would enable programmable, positional assembly to atomic specification (see the original reference PNAS-1981). The physics and engineering performance of exemplar designs were analyzed in the textbook NanosystemsThe National Science Foundation (a major source of funding for nanotechnology in the United States) funded researcher David Berube to study the field of nanotechnology. His findings are published in the monograph “Nano-Hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz.” This published study (with a foreword by Mihail Roco, head of the NNI) concludes that much of what is sold as “nanotechnology” is in fact a recasting of straightforward materials science, which is leading to a “nanotech industry built solely on selling nanotubes, nanowires, and the like” which will “end up with a few suppliers selling low margin products in huge volumes."
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Nanotechnology comprises technological developments on the nanometer scale, usually 0.1 to 100 nm. (One nanometer equals one thousandth of a micrometer or one millionth of a millimeter.) The term has sometimes been applied to microscopic technology\n\naccording to Smalley\n\nNanotechnology figures mightily in the practical harnessing of solar power—and, for that matter, in any long-term energy solution \n\n"Nanotechnology is right at the core [of] the answer to the energy problem," \n\nIn the case of solar power, for example, nanotechnology holds the promise of cutting the cost of photovoltaics by 10 to 100 times, he said. It may bring about a similar-scale reduction in the cost of fuel cells in enumerating two of "14 enabling nanotech revolutions" that could transform world energy production and usage.\n\nThese potential energy breakthroughs, which, he said, "could only come from nanotechnology," also include a "revolution" in hydrogen storage; direct conversion of light and water into hydrogen supplies; "photocatalytic" reduction of carbon dioxide; and nanomaterials, or coatings enabling the possibility of very deep drilling into Earth to obtain geothermal heat.\n\nThe best way to tap the sun's enormous energy stream may be to put solar power plants in space or on the moon,  noting that solar cells in space could operate at about nine times the efficiency of similar cells on Earth.\n\n"There [are] massive amounts of [solar] energy that miss the Earth every day," shooting right past it.\n\nHere again, nanotechnology would figure critically: providing "super-strong, light-weight materials" that would make it possible to build efficient solar power-collecting space stations, and perhaps leading to nanoelectronics-based robots that could handle tasks such as maintaining space-based solar energy systems.
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nanotechnology\nThe science of developing materials at the atomic and molecular level in order to imbue them with special electrical and chemical properties. Nanotechnology, which deals with devices typically less than 100 nanometers in size, is expected to make a significant contribution to the fields of computer storage, semiconductors, biotechnology, manufacturing and energy.\n\nEnvisioned are all kinds of amazing products, including extraordinarily tiny computers that are very powerful, building materials that withstand earthquakes, advanced systems for drug delivery and custom-tailored pharmaceuticals as well as the elimination of invasive surgery, because repairs can be made from within the body.\n\nLarry Bock, CEO of Nanosys, who helped launch more than a dozen successful biotech companies in his career, believes that nanotech will impact even more industries than biotech. In an excerpted article from the March 2003 Nanotech Report, he compared nanotechnology with the microelectronics industry. Bock said that "a single chemistry graduate student can create novel devices and device architectures not even imaginable or manufacturable by today's biggest microprocessor companies. That is because these devices are fabricated chemically, or from the bottom up. Existing microelectronics technology is fabricated by etching wafers, or from the top down." See AFM, STM, Buckyball, nanotube and MEMS.
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Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced. In its original sense, 'nanotechnology' refers to the projected ability to construct items from the bottom up, using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete, high performance products. \nNanotechnology is often referred to as a general-purpose technology. That's because in its advanced form it will have significant impact on almost all industries and all areas of society. It offers better built, longer lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for industry in general. \n\nImagine a medical device that travels through the human body to seek out and destroy small clusters of cancerous cells before they can spread. Or a box no larger than a sugar cube that contains the entire contents of the Library of Congress. Or materials much lighter than steel that possess ten times as much strength. \n\nWhen K. Eric Drexler (right) popularized the word 'nanotechnology' in the 1980's, he was talking about building machines on the scale of molecules, a few nanometers wide—motors, robot arms, and even whole computers, far smaller than a cell. Drexler spent the next ten years describing and analyzing these incredible devices, and responding to accusations of science fiction. Meanwhile, mundane technology was developing the ability to build simple structures on a molecular scale. As nanotechnology became an accepted concept, the meaning of the word shifted to encompass the simpler kinds of nanometer-scale technology. The U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative was created to fund this kind of nanotech: their definition includes anything smaller than 100 nanometers with novel properties.
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Nanotechnology is a catch-all phrase for materials and devices that operate at the nanoscale. In the metric system of measurement, “Nano” equals a billionth and therefore a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. References to nano materials, nanoelectronics, nano devices and nanopowders simply mean the material or activity can be measured in nanometers. To appreciate the size, a human red blood cell is over 2,000 nanometers long, virtually outside the nanoscale range!\n \n  \n \nRecently, government and private institutions have devoted substantial research into finding potential valuable uses at this scale, as discussed below.
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One really easy answer is DNA sequencing. Nanotechnology deals with objects measured in the billionths of a meter. Most say objects less than 100 nanometers. Therefore, although the length of a DNA Strand is way to long to be considered Nanotechnology the individual base pairs fit into nanotechnology perfectly.
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Nano technology is the latest buzz which have tremendous scope in coming future because we are going towards slimmer gadgets with greater features and nano technology is the only solution which can make this happen.\n\nGood luck
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"nano" is  a word like "dance".  Aside from size, there are many different expressions of it. For instance, getting a string of DNA to bend on command is a recent accomplishment in nano-tech.  Does that have an immediate application to medicine? No. Does it tell us a little about the behavior of DNA? Yes. This world can change faster now than any other time in history, so I'm not about to make a hard decision on the future.\n\nYou get a great big quantum MAYBE from me on your question.
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Nanotechnolgy is basically very small robots made to work.\nThat's in layman's terms but if you really want some good info i suggest you google it out, you cannot find better answers anywhere else. The areas as far as i know are in every field possible, from surgery to textile. You will find some really great answers if you get in touch with HP guys, They know this in and out.
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Nanomaterials already exist in their natural form, and they already help run our daily economy—for example, when we use quantum-based lasers to read compact discs and compact videodiscs. But the real challenge for materials scientists is to synthesize nanomaterials and nano-related structures and devices in efficient and cheap ways. Some scientists believe that the real contribution of nanomaterials will come when nanotechnology allows development of the first "universal assembling molecular machine"—a programmable molecular machine or assembler that can scale up production at frenetic rates in a few decades; others believe that this goal is unreachable. Carbon nanotubes and nanoparticles are commercially available for the manufacture of specialty products such as antistatic compounds and transparent coatings. Early users of nanomaterials include the chemical and materials companies, the cosmetics industry, the paint industry, and the nanobiotechnology industry. The nanobiotechnology industry uses nanomaterials in a range of applications, including biosensors, diagnostic devices, drug-release systems, and tissue repair and regeneration. In addition, the electronics and computer industries, electromechanical-component developers, and the sensor industry will make good use of nanomaterials. The regional markets most active in commercializing nanomaterials are Japan, North America, and some European countries, including Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.\n\nNanomaterials technology is still in its infancy, but as the technology matures, it could launch an era of technological revolutions. In the near term, not only will nanomaterials refine the development of existing technologies, but also they will bring new emerging and disruptive technologies to the marketplace. Venture capitalists will see opportunities to invest in new start-ups, not all of which will prosper. In the long term, according to popular hype, nanomaterials may lead to a powerful and accelerated social revolution in which virtually all present industrial processes become obsolete, along with our contemporary concept of labor. The reality will be somewhat different, but without doubt, nanomaterials have an important role to play in nanotechnology and will over time have a strong impact on people's lives. Consumer goods could become plentiful, inexpensive, smart, and durable. The capabilities of medicine and space technology could make a quantum leap. However, the application of stringent regulations at an early stage of the development of nanomaterials technology is likely to slow or inhibit its commercial expansion in some areas, and the practicalities and costs of developments will be prohibitive. Close attention to feasible and practical aspects of the technology is essential to form a realistic view of the future of nanomaterials.
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Nanotech is indeed real. Have you never seen surveillance cameras the size of a dime, and what about tracking devices about the size of a cigarette lighter?Do you remember how many different components use to be in a regular am radio & tv set? Tubes, capacitors, resistors, coils, etc. are now on a pc circuit board in the form of an integrated circuit about 1"x1/4". The first computer ever devised needed many rooms to house. The laptop now is less than the sise of some wire bound notebooks high school kids carry.