Now that we’ve covered the ‘beginning’ let’s delve into the nitty gritty: How do you actually build anything when you can’t see what you’re doing? Little teeny minuscule tweezers…?

Engineering in nanotechnology works from the ‘bottom-up’ instead of the ‘top-down’ as in traditional manufacturing. Some materials such as nanowires actually assemble themselves given the right conditions. Other experiments on a larger scale are also striving to demonstrate this principle of self-assembly.

By studying the natural world, researchers are finding ways to put DNA, proteins, viruses and bacteria to work in building nanomaterials with positive outcomes so far.

Measuring distance is also a problem at nanoscale which scientists are setting out to solve by using an atomic lattice nanoruler which improves accuracy.

I think I’ll stick to Lego though – thank you very much!

Source: New Scientist