If you can picture dividing one millimetre into a million equal slices, you’re at the infinitely miniscule scale of atoms and molecules. Scientists have discovered that materials behave very differently when they are made up of very small building blocks. Nanotechnology puts these discoveries to work by manipulating the basic building blocks of matter – one atom at a time – to produce unique materials and novel processes.

Fact sheets

• Nanotechnology and its role in environmental sustainability
• Nanotechnology - big science with tiny building blocks

Experts

• Experts for media interviews

Photographs

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	Members of the nanotechnology research group in the School of Chemistry at the University of the Witwatersrand use a transmission electron microscope to study the microstructure of carbon nanomaterials synthesised in their laboratories. Front to back: Ahmed Shaikjee, Dr Heifeng Xiong, Zikhona Tetana and Edward Nxumalo.
	Pictured with a variable-temperature scanning tunnelling microscope (VT-STM) is PhD (physics) student, Gebhu Ndlovu. This instrument scans conducting and semi-conducting materials with atomic resolution using a tunnelling current (a quantum phenomenon of electrons passing through a barrier, in this case a vacuum) from a sharp tip to the surface atoms of the imaged material. (Photo: Courtesy CSIR)