What makes nanotechnology different from the materials used in the past?
The interesting and novel part of the nanometer scale is that materials develop different properties. A micrometer piece of a material has the same properties as bulk material. By going to the nanometer scale, the quantum nature of the material takes over. It is not a quantitative transformation. It is a qualitative one. A metal can become an insulator at very small sizes. Correspondingly, an insulator can become metallic. (Editors’ note: A nanometer measures one-billionth of meter; a micrometer, also known as a micron, is one-millionth of a meter.) Invite Michael Kanellos into your in-box Get senior department editor Michael Kanellos delivered right to your in-box with a full column and commentary on chips, servers and all the hardware critical to your business. Enterprise Hardware, every Wednesday. In semiconductors, I’ve read that air can change the behavior of nanotubes. That is one of the most important aspects. It is going to be true for just about every small device that we have
