The study of the performance of ultra-small structures, materials, and devices, usu. usually 0.1 to 100 nm; also, the study of manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale. Nanoscience is sometimes used interchangably with Nanotechnology, which is the manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale.
Questions tagged [nanoscience]
230 questions
12
votes
6 answers
Perpetual motion machine of the second kind possible in nano technology?
First of all sorry for my English - it is not my native language.
During my engineering studies at the university the thermodynamics professor told us that the "second law of thermodynamics is not true for a low number of molecules".
At that time…
Martin Rosenau
- 699
12
votes
2 answers
About the practical benefit of the electromagnetic discovery in Cheops Pyramid
There's this Newsweek article titled "Ancient Egypt: Incredible Electromagnetic Discovery in Great Pyramid of Giza's Hidden Chambers" (here) that says that
Now, an international team of physicists has found that, under the
right conditions, the…
user65435
9
votes
2 answers
Have they really photographed light behaving both as a particle and a wave?
I just came across this article where they are claiming that they have photographed light behaving both as a wave and a particle!
The paper has been published in Nature Communications and I read the abstract which says,
Surface plasmon polaritons…
noir1993
- 2,226
8
votes
2 answers
Is light red shifted in optical tweezers?
This is a question I put to my supervisor during my PhD many years ago, and never really got a satisfactory answer to.
In an optical tweezers, assume that a beam of light is used to move a glass bead. My question is whether the outgoing light is…
Dave Cunnah
- 171
8
votes
5 answers
Nano-particle or Molecule?
What's the difference between something being labeled a "nano-particle" or it being called a "molecule"?
cpuguru
- 181
7
votes
1 answer
What happens if a metal wire that was one-atom in thickness was pulled across a finger?
What would happen if a metal wire that was one-atom was pulled across your finger? Would it cut off your finger, or would it pass through your finger without harming you? What if the metal one atom thick was "unbreakable"?
MarcelineH
- 520
7
votes
6 answers
Can a single molecule have a state?
I was studying a book about thermodynamics of nanosystems and I got stuck with this question in my mind which I couldn't find an answer for.
For instance, does a single water molecule have a state, like being liquid or something?
Or is one molecule…
psychob
- 71
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6
votes
2 answers
How do High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMT) work?
I am studying High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMT), but I simply cannot understand how they work in the way described by the references I've read on the Internet.
This is what I understand so far: The idea is to decrease scattering and…
Percy
- 235
6
votes
1 answer
What is the physical limit to how small semiconductors can get?
Wikipedia shows this history of the progressive miniaturisation of semiconductors:
10 µm – 1971
6 µm – 1974
3 µm – 1977
1.5 µm – 1981
1 µm – 1984
800 nm – 1987
600 nm – 1990
350 nm – 1993
250 nm – 1996
180 nm – 1999
130 nm – 2001
90 nm – 2003
65 nm…
stevec
- 161
6
votes
2 answers
If you had two "perfectly" flat surfaces of the same material?
Let's say you had 2 nano-engineered surfaces of diamond which were as 'flat' as possible (of course considering the radii of each carbon atom in the lattice)... would there be any friction between these 2 flat diamond surfaces when rubbed together?…
user21619
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6
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Are there yet Optical Magnetic Mirrors (OMMs) which reflect via interaction with the magnetic field?
update 2021: As the question has remained unanswered for five years and the field of optical metamaterials has advanced, I think this question can be revisited.
The most familiar mirror relies on reflection from a metal, where the very strong…
uhoh
- 6,089
5
votes
1 answer
Clarification of Landauer approach
I am trying to understand the Landauer approach. Consider the setup: (left contact)-(conductor)-(right contact). For simplicity, the conductor is a 1d wire (the transverse part is not relevant for this question). The eigenstates of the conductor are…
lagoa
- 321
5
votes
0 answers
What causes materials like Vantablack to have their high optical absorption properties?
As per the title of this post. From reading, I understand that blackbody radiation is a factor I should consider here, with light being absorbed and converted to heat etc.
However, what I want to understand is just what causes Vantablack to behave…
5
votes
1 answer
Is there a material that becomes permanently conductive after being exposed to light?
There exist a material that becomes permanently conductive after being exposed to light?
S. Feunmajer
- 297
4
votes
1 answer
Fourier transformation, electric field and magnetic field to have a shielding lattice against particles
With Fourier-Series Expansion, we can write a function as sum of many non-repating different frequncied different amplituded sine and cosine functions.
Lets assume we know electric-field and magnetic-field representation function of Hydrogen atoms…
