CITRIS Invention Lab

ALT Nanotechnology is the study and manipulation of matter at incredibly small sizes, generally between one and 100 nanometers. Nanotech is leading to some incredible scientific advances that are improving our daily lives.

ALT How small is a nanometer? A piece of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. An average human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide. The tip of a ballpoint pen is about 1,000,000 nanometers wide. There are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch.

ALT The ideas and concepts behind nanotechnology started with a talk entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” by physicist Richard Feynman in 1959. In 1974, in his explorations of ultraprecision machining, Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term "nanotechnology." It wasn't until 1981, with the development of the scanning tunneling microscope that could "see" individual atoms, that modern nanotechnology began.

ALT Women in Nanotech Mildred Dresselhaus, Known as the "Queen of Carbon Science." LaShanda Korley, University of Delaware Evelyn Hu, Harvard University Tsu-Jae King Liu, UC Berkeley Saniya LeBlanc, George Washington University Zhenan Bao, Stanford University

ALT Collage of headshots of 2021 Women in Tech Symposium speakers with light blue overlay.