What do you consider as 'nanotechnology'? Is the term being diluted?
Ai Lin Chun
Tuesday, 11 September 2007 15:24 UTC
Hello Everyone,
In recent months, I have read and processed several interesting manuscripts but many were hardly in the nano regime. For example, fibers that were 400-600nm were called NANOfibers.
All of this got me thinking about presenting this dilemma on this post…
Are we diluting the term ‘nano’ and why are we doing this? How strict/flexible should we be?
Even after sending some of these papers out to referees, some indicated that even though the materials were 400-600nm, the work is publishable because it is interesting and thorough.
Any thoughts?
Updated 11 November 2007 13:18 UTC
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Replies
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My own rule of thumb: just multiply by 1000, and ask if those of interest can be called “micro-” stuff. I guess that would be a fairly good place to begin with. I rather doubt that we call a 0.5-mm ballpoint pen a “micro-pen” for example.
I doubt it, yes, but if asked a few decades ago… not that confident.
It also depends on the context and the trend. I agree sometimes we overuse the term nano, but few would argue when that nano things 1) are actually nano (important!), 2) make the best use of their size, and 3) could not be substituted by anything bigger (or smaller in case).
As long as those conditions are met, it is natural to me; or should we use “submicro-” instead? Only if we had another in-between unit like angstrom (= 0.1 nm = 100 pm)…
Last but not least, “nano” means nothing by itself. What matters is the unique phenomenon that it shows to us. As a reader, I would happy to read the article whatever title it has.
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Hmm…importantance and necessity for it to be called nano. Right on!
My take on this right now is: the material/system needs to have an engineered or built in functionality that can/will interact/interface more effectively with cellular elements at the ‘nano’ regime (in the case of nanomedicine/nanobio related papers). In a sense, the ‘nanoness’ should represent why a particular system works so much better than if without it. Of course, most materials will inherently possess nanostructures but for it to be considered nanotechnology, the material should have been manipulated in some way so it now either exploits the inherent nano character/properties in a systematic way or introduces a nano feature for either better applications, clearer understanding of a phenomenon or discovery of new science.
So, let’s draw a poll. Do you consider the following as nanotechnology that should be considered in Nature Nanotechnology?
1) Polymers in the form of nanocarriers, nanofibers, etc for delivery, to treat diseases or tissue regeneration. *Note: frequently these papers do not present the characterization data for how big the polymers really are. Do we just assume they are nano?
2) The use of AFM, STM or some high resolution imaging tool to show that some nanostructures exist in materials (i.e. inorganic materials, biological materials, tissues etc.)
Comments?
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I am a newbie in nanofield.
I need to learn many things but I think if 500nm of something shows different phenomena compared to 1000nm, we may use NANO.I think that the definition of NANOtechnology is not just the size reduction but the functional uniqueness which can be achieved by only NANO-level.
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I general agree with the Ailin`s idea. Actually, it is hard to make an explicit criteria for NANO. Taking polymers as example, if its thickness was within a size of <100 nm, it was usually called as nanomaterial. This idea comes from a rough definition of Nanotechnology in the beginning of 1990`s:“the material that has at least one dimension within the size of <100nm can be called as nanomaterial”. Actually, so far, most people used this as a measure to identify whether a given one is a “nanomaterial”. The so called nanofiber is at a similar situation, if its diameter is in the nanoscale, no matter how long it is, it was treated as a nanomaterial. But from my own point of view, I think the size is an important Nano-parameter but not the only one. The size is emphasized here because some material goes under a certain nanosize shows dramatic changes in their physicochemical properties, quantum effect is one of them. So, in the final analysis, the novel property/functionality is of most important, versus the nanosize itself. Regarding the use of AFM, STM or some high resolution imaging tool to show that some nanostructures exist in materials (i.e. inorganic materials, biological materials, tissues etc.), though the imaging tools are tools only, nothing more, if their revealed nanostructures are previously unknown, and will provide us with new insights to understanding the world we are living in (at a nanoscale), it might be considered as a part of nanotechnology. How do you think about it?
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Thanks, Yuliang.
Re: ‘novel property/function is the most important’
How would a material or system simply having a novel property/function constitute nano if the size is not important?Re: nanotools for elucidating new understanding
In such a case, simply using nanotools to observe nanostructures might not be compelling enough. One would need to take a step further and show why these nanostructures are important and form a necessary part of the functioning of the system.Other thoughts/comments?
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Re: How would a material or system simply having a novel property/function constitute nano if the size is not important…..? Actually, some nanostructures may exist in many materials or systems if we look at them at a nanoscale. Size is a featured parameter because the nanosize mostly relates to the property/function of the nanomaterial, because of such as the specific surface area, the adsorbtion ability, surface reactivity, altered catalysis, etc. In nanotechnology, size probably becomes more important, the technology that is able to manufacture a new product (with new functions) or fabricate a nanodevice at a nanometer scale is considered as a nanotechnology. Otherwise, it is the conventional “mico”-technology we have been using for several decades. Re: simply using nanotools to observe nanostructures might not be compelling enough……: I agree with Ailin`s thoughts, simply using nanotools to observe nanostructures is not enough, we would need to take a step further and show why these nanostructures are important and form a necessary part of the functioning of the system, because these finally make us better understand the underlying of our world than before.
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During all my flirtations with nanotech, I’ve always been PO’ed by attempts to apply the term “nano” to anything and everything.
I think the day I heard someone refer to protein folding as nanotechnology was the time I realized that “nano” had officially bitten the shark.
Any engineered material, whose properties are driven by their size (I am not that strict on the 100 nm definition) to me is nanotechnology. That is different from “nanoscience” in my book, which is the study of properties at those scales.
My $.02
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