What is a Nanometer?

Student Worksheet:
How Big is Small?

It can be hard to visualize how small things are at the nanoscale.  The following exercise can help you visualize how big small can be!

The following are drawings of items you may recognize…. a bowling ball, a billiard ball, a tennis ball, a golf ball, a marble, and a pea.  Think about the relative size of these items.

Now take a look at the chart below that was developed by the National Cancer Institute (U.S.) and think about how much smaller the various items are…moving down from the familiar tennis ball.  The "." on this page is 1,000,000 microns -- quite gigantic compared to a virus or a single molecule of water (H20).

 What is a Nanometer?

Student Resource:
How Small is Small?

It can be challenging to envision just how small a nanometer is!

What is a Nanometer?
 A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.  But how big is that?  The chart below should help you understand how small a nano really is.  Notice that a centimeter is 1/100th of a meter.  That also means that a meter is 100 times as big as a centimeter.  If an object were a meter wide, it would also be 1,000,000,000 nanometers wide.  So something that is only 1 nm wide is very small indeed.   

The picture to the right is of Single gold nanoparticle crystals formed using radiolysis at Sandia National Laboratory's Gamma Irradiation Facility.  
The gold nanoparticle is approximately 30 nm in size.

	Symbol	Relative Size	
meter	m	about three feet or one yard	
centimeter	cm	1/100 of a meter, about half of an inch	
millimeter	mm	1/1,000 of a meter	
micrometer or a micron	µm	1/1,000,000 of a meter, often called a micron	
nanometer	nm	1/1,000,000,000 of a meter	

 

What is a Nanometer?

Student Worksheet
Measuring in Nanometers:

You are part of a team of engineers who has been given the challenge of measuring ten objects in your classroom at the nano scale -- in nanometers (nm). 

Measure each object in millimeters, and then convert using the following formula:

1 millimeter = 1,000,000 nanometers

or

1 centimeter = 10,000,000 nanometers

So, if used crayon was 4 centimeters long, it would also be 40,000,000 nanometers in length.

 Measuring Phase
Complete the following measurements as a group:

Classroom Object
	Original Measurement	Measurement in Nanometers	
1.
			
2.
			
3.
			
4.
			
5. 
			
6.
			
7. 
			
8.
			
9.
			
10.

Student Worksheet (continued)
Measuring in Nanometers:

 Evaluation Phase
Complete the following questions as a group:

1. What was the most surprising thing you learned about nanotechnology during this activity?

2. Do you think you would be able to see an element that was 10 nanometers wide without the aid of technology?

3. If a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick, how do you think an engineer would go about moving an element that is only 30 nanometers thick -- such as the gold particle to the right? 

4.  Do you think that engineers working at the nano scale have a harder time doing their work than engineers who are working with larger objects, such as batteries, rockets, or sheets of steel?  Why?

5.  Do you think that nanotechnology might have the most impact on the development of materials, improvements in energy options, or in advances in healthcare?  Why?