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How Small Is a Nanometer?
A scale beyond the visible
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When I was a child, I had never heard the term “nano”. Today, it has become an integral part of our lives, with nanotechnology playing a critical role in many industries and everyday products.
For example, Apple’s iPhone 14 uses a chip called A15 Bionic, which is manufactured with a 5nm technology. Some of you may be holding one in your hand right now. Do you have a good idea of what 5nm is?
The prefix nano- comes from the Greek word “nanos”, which means dwarf. In the International System of Units, nano- is used to denote a factor of 10^-9, or one billionth. One nanometer (nm) is one billionth of a meter.
Can you imagine one billionth?
When I was young, the wealthiest people were called millionaires, but now they are billionaires. I find it hard to grasp the enormity of a billion. However, what I do know is that today’s billionaires have built their fortunes through technologies that allow us to probe into the realm as tiny as one billionth of a meter.
Similar to how the meter is a unit of measurement for everyday objects at a human scale, the nanometer is the unit used for measuring individual atoms and molecules. For example:
