Nanometers

"Imagine a swing that, once pushed, keeps swinging for almost 100 years because it loses almost no energy through the ropes." So says a Delft University of Technology researcher who has helped his team accomplish a parallel feat at the nanoscale.

Highlighting the march of technology, IBM has unveiled new semiconductor chips with the smallest transistors ever made. The new 2- nanometer tech allows the company to cram a staggering 50 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail.

Engineers from MIT and the University of Colorado have developed a new microfabrication technique and used it to produce the smallest 3D transistors ever made, measuring about a third the size of the current leading commercial products.

Scientists have accidentally created a new material thought for more than 100 years to be impossible. A single gram of Upsalite has a surface area of 800 sq m, equivalent to the sail of a megayacht.

Engineers have created energy-scavenging nanofibers that could one day be woven into clothing and textiles to harness kinetic energy from body movements and power mobile devices.

Nanotechnology promises to revolutionize practically every area of human endeavor. Already products containing nanoparticles are lining supermarket shelves, but the big question is, are they safe?

Researchers are looking to cram more transistors onto integrated circuits by adapting the same methods used in fusion-energy research to create extremely thin plasma beams for a new class of 'nanolithography'.

Researchers are close to finding a way to further reduce the size of nanoscale lasers to obtain devices we could use to speed up our Internet access.