Nanotechnology processes made possible the manipulation of atoms and, therefore, the design and manufacture of the nanostructured materials.

Materials often behave in a different way when they are nanostructured. This is accomplished by having every atom or molecule in a designated location. The resulting materials and systems can be rationally designed to exhibit novel and significantly improved optical, chemical and electrical properties. For example, carbon nanotubes, are promising building blocks for nanosystems; they consist of honeycomb lattices, rolled into cylinders with atomic force microscopy, having a nanometer-scale diameter and length of about a micron (fig 3). Their weight is about one-sixth of the weight of steel the Young's modulus about five times and their tensile strength more than 100 times those of steel. They are even stronger than diamond, because their carbon–carbon band lengths are shorter than the related ones in diamond. Such materials are very light and, at the same time, very strong; therefore, they can be used as structural materials for aerospace and bone surgery applications. Furthermore, the current carrying capacity of nanometer-scale carbon wires is about 100,000 times better than that of copper, which makes them suitable for applications in integrated circuits for performing functions currently performed by semiconductor devices in electronic circuits (fig.4). Electronic devices constructed from molecules can be hundreds of times smaller than their semiconductor based counterparts. The newly invented third type of carbon, after graphite and diamond, the C₆₀, may be used as a dry lubricant in mechanical applications.

Fig. 3. Carbon nanotubes rolled with AFM


Fig. 4. A perspective view of a carbon nanotube kink junction (blue) between two electrodes (yellow) on an insulating substrate SiO₂ (green).