Nanoschool Nano Desk
Writes the nanotechnology explainers on this site — scale, characterisation, materials and the gap between a laboratory result and a shipping product. Every piece is reviewed by a faculty member working in the area before it publishes.
Published
How small is a nanometre, really?
The human-hair comparison tells you nothing useful. Six anchors at the right order of magnitude, and the two mechanisms that make small materials behave differently.
Nanomedicine, explained
Why a drug-delivery nanoparticle has a core, a shell, a polymer coat and a targeting ligand — told as the sequence of failures each layer was added to solve.
Quantum dots: from lab curiosity to your television
Why a quantum dot's colour is set by its size, and why the journey from a 1981 observation to a shipping display took three decades of manufacturing rather than physics.
Where nanotechnology research stands today
Discovery, characterisation, pilot line, product. What each stage measures, what kills projects at each one, and why most of the field is permanently in the first two.
What is Nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology is defined by scale rather than substance. Here is what changes between 1 and 100 nanometres, why it changes, and why a nanoparticle of a familiar material can be a genuinely new one.