Nano technology is the technology that creates small materials at the scale of molecules by manipulating single atoms. The name nano comes from the size of molecules which is measured in nanometres or one billionth of a meter (0.000000001 meter). The dimension of single atoms is ten-fold smaller. The molecular processes of life, particularly the activity of proteins and the self-organizing behaviour of many biological molecules has greatly inspired nano technology and molecular motors could be considered the result of nature's nano technology. Nano technology and nanoscience reaches back into the late part of the 19 century, when nanometer-sized colloidal particles were first undergoing rigorous study. Nano technology and nanoscience got started in the early 1980s with two major developments; the birth of cluster science and the invention of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM). This development led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1986 and carbon nanotubes a few years later. In another development, the synthesis and properties of semi-conductor nanocrystals was studied. This led to a fast increasing number of metal oxide nanoparticles of quantum dots.
