Nanotechnology

In today’s world, we are surrounded by countless innovations in the form of multipurpose, well-connected and featherweight gadgets that aims to enable us to work more efficiently while increasing our effectiveness daily. But little did we know that much of the world’s sophisticated and spectacular high-technology products that we possess, small enough to fit into our breast pockets or bags derive from the concept or underlying doctrines of Nanotechnology that manipulates matter on a smaller scale while, inevitably resulting in components and functional systems within a gadget to be reduced to as size measurably only by the nano scale where a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

Nanotechnology, or loosely known as Nanotech that began with Physicist Richard Feynman’s talk, “there’s plenty of room at the bottom”, revealed the possibility of developing machines that create objects with atomic precision sparked wide interest in this field in the late 1950’s. With the launch of the National Nanotechnology Institute in the United States and widespread interest and research into enhancement of materials and development of newer technology, Nanotech has been identified worldwide as the key to unlocking a new generation of materials and devices with revolutionary properties and functionalities. While the impact of nanotechnology has been made in many areas, such as the electronics and information storage industry, the technology is still at its embryonic stage and current applications of nanotechnology represent the fruition of only the tip of the nanotechnology iceberg.

It is said that nanotechnology will be a remarkable breakthrough in human history that would change the world, either better or worse depending heavily on how thoroughful humankind understands the technology. Overuse of low-cost nano products could damage the environment on a large scale. Living in such an environment would also make human more vulnerable to nano particles’ penetration, which could...