A new way to visualize brain cancer at the nanoscale level

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have unveiled unprecedentedly detailed images of brain cancer tissue through the use of a new microscopy technology called ...

DNA origami nanoturbine sets new horizon for nanomotors

A collaborative team of researchers led by Prof. Cees Dekker at Delft University of Technology, in partnership with international colleagues, have introduced a pioneering breakthrough in the world of nanomotors—the DNA ...

Chiro-optical force observed at the nanoscale

A research group at the Institute for Molecular Science has successfully observed the left and right handedness of material structures at the nanoscale, by illuminating chiral gold nanostructures with circularly polarized ...

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Nanoscopic scale

The nanoscopic scale usually refers to structures with a length scale applicable to nanotechnology, usually cited as 1-100 nanometers. The nanoscopic scale is roughly speaking a lower bound to the mesoscopic scale for most solids.

For technical purposes, the nanoscopic scale is the size at which the expected fluctuations of the averaged properties due to the motion and behavior of individual particles can no longer be reduced to below some desirable threshold (often a few percent), and must be rigorously established within the context of any particular problem.

The 'nanoscopic scale' is sometimes marked as the point where the properties of a material change; above this point, the properties of a material are caused by 'bulk' or 'volume' effects, namely which atoms are present, how they are bonded, and in what ratios. Below this point, the properties of a material change, and while the type of atoms present and their relative orientations are still important, 'surface area effects', also referred to as quantum effects, become more apparent-these effects are due to the geometry of the material (how thick it is, how wide it is, etc), which, at these low dimensions, can have a drastic effect on quantized states, and thus the properties of a material.

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