Nanotechnology is a field of research and innovation concerned
with building 'things' - generally, materials and devices - on the
scale of atoms and molecules. A nanometre is one-billionth of a
metre: ten times the diameter of a hydrogen atom. The diameter of a
human hair is, on average, 80,000 nanometres. At such scales, the
ordinary rules of physics and chemistry no longer apply. For
instance, materials' characteristics, such as their colour,
strength, conductivity and reactivity, can differ substantially
between...