Introduction to Nanotechnology

Abstract

In principle, nanomaterials are materials with at least one dimension of 100 nm or less. Although nanotechnology; the science of the nanoscale, has emerged as a scientific discipline in the late twentieth century, human exposure to nanoma-terials has begun in the times of ancient civilizations. In comparison to their bulk counterparts, nanomaterials exhibit unique physical and chemical properties hence having enormous applications in different fields such as agriculture, engineering, medicine and biomedical sciences. The main approaches for the synthesis of nano-materials are bottom-up and top-down approaches which utilize various physical, chemical or biological synthesis procedures. This chapter gives a general overview of the history of nanotechnology, the properties of nanomaterials, their classification as well as the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials.