In a world where bigger often equates to better, nanotechnology flips that on its head: smaller is superior. The relatively young science makes use of rapidly evolving research to exploit the unique properties that materials display when they are in the nanoworld, far too small to be seen by the naked eye.

A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Imagining something that small can be difficult, so it helps to describe this measurement in everyday terms. A sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometers thick. A human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide. One inch equals 25.4 million nanometers.