Nanoengineering is the practice of engineering on the nanoscale. It derives its name from the nanometre, a unit of measurement equalling one billionth of a meter. Nanoengineering is closely related to nanotechnology.
Techniques
- Photolithography - Using light to produce patterns in chemicals, and then etching to expose the surface.
- Electron beam lithography - Similar to photolithography, but using electron beams instead of light.
- Scanning tunneling microscope (STM) - Can be used to both image, and to manipulate structures as small as a single atom.
- Molecular self-assembly - Arbitrary sequences of DNA can now be synthesized cheaply in bulk, and used to create custom proteins or regular patterns of amino acids. Similarly, DNA strands can bind to other DNA strands, allowing simple structures to be created.
