GC: n
CT: Nanotechnology, the manipulation and manufacture of materials and devices on the scale of atoms or small groups of atoms. The “nanoscale” is typically measured in nanometres, or billionths of a metre (nanos, the Greek word for “dwarf,” being the source of the prefix), and materials built at this scale often exhibit distinctive physical and chemical properties due to quantum mechanical effects. Although usable devices this small may be decades away (see microelectromechanical system), techniques for working at the nanoscale have become essential to electronic engineering, and nanoengineered materials have begun to appear in consumer products.
S: EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/962484/nanotechnology (last access: 20 December 2014)
N: 1. by 1974, from nano- (introduced 1947, at 14th conference of the Union Internationale de Chimie, as a prefix for units of one thousand-millionth part, from Greek nanos “a dwarf.” According to Watkins, this is originally “little old man,” from nannos “uncle,” masc. of nanna “aunt”. Earlier it was used as a prefix to mean “dwarf, dwarfish,” and still in a non-scientific sense of “very small.”) + technology (1610s, “a discourse or treatise on an art or the arts,” from Greek tekhnologia “systematic treatment of an art, craft, or technique,” originally referring to grammar, from tekhno- + -logy).
2. The science of designing, producing, and using structures and devices having one or more dimensions of about 100 millionth of a millimetre (100 nanometres) or less.
3. Any technology related to features of nanometric scale: thin films, fine particles, chemical synthesis, advanced microlithography, and so forth.
4. The term “molecular technology” as opposed to “bulk technology” is sometimes used for “nanotechnology.”
5. Nanotechnology comprises the emerging application of nanoscience.
S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=nanotechnology&searchmode=none (last access: 20 December 2014). 2, 3, 4 & 5. TERMIUMPLUS.
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