Nanotechnology is likely to shape every aspect of human life and many industrial sectors in the near future.
1. Nano (which means dwarf in the Greek language) means one billionth in the metric system of measurement. According to this definition, "nanotechnology" is a science that deals with "nano" particles which have the size of one thousandths of an human hair. Just like combining parts and creating a desired shape in a puzzle game, in nanotechnology individual atoms and molecules are combined in a similar fashion to produce a desired product.
2. The concepts of nanotechnology, first put forward by Norio Taniguchi of Tokyo University in 1974, are rapidly emerging technologies based on minimizing existing technologies and making them more sensitive.
3. Generally speaking, nanotechnology is about reducing matter indirectly to the size of an atom and therefore to "nano-size". In other words, nanotechnology is the name of that technology which deals with the production, installation and usage of materials which have sizes consisting of one hundred millionth and one billionth of a meter. Nanotechnology is a field which aims for the production of instruments which not only can operate but can work efficiently and contains features not existing in our macro world by using atoms individually.
4. The high potential of nanotechnology became known by the laws of quantum physics. At this stage, the laws of quantum physics step in and allow for new applications in areas like optics, electronics, magnetic storage, computing, catalysts and potentially many other fields as well.
5. In nanotechnology, a measurement unit is called a "nanometer" (abbreviated as nm). 1 billion nm exist in every measurement. Every nm is only three to five atoms in width.
Nanotechnology is often referred to as general purpose technology because when nanotechnology is fully realized it will have an important place in nearly every sector and every area of society. Better made, longer lasting, cleaner, safer and smarter products can be used with Allah's permission in the home, communications, medicine, transportation and every area of agriculture and industry. Nanotechnology brings faster, more cost effective and cleaner systems of production. The means of production can be increased exponentially so that a few nano factories can themselves produce billions of products in a couple of weeks.
7. By means of nanotechnology, bacteria-sized mini computers, or computers the size of sugar cube but have the calculating power of billions of computers can be produced. The thing that makes nanotechnology potential so tremendous is the structure of atoms and their excellent feature of organization with each other.
8. One of the areas in which the usage of nanotechnology is most potentially promising is medicine. With nanotechnology, it may be possible that robots produced through nanotechnology can seek out and find cancer cells and discharge their medicine payloads into them after entering these cells, or can carry out direct surgical operations to open clogged blood vessels.
9. Nanotechnology experts take as their inspiration living things in the environment and use their features in their works. In this respect ,viruses are ideal organisms to take as examples because of their mobility, concealment strategies and ability to store information and replicate it .10) Nanotechnology, like all the technological advancements around us, is one of the blessings which Allah gives to the service of mankind in order to make our lives easier and can be a potentially great benefit in every area in the future. Nanotechnology surely represents an occasion to praise Allah like all the things created by Allah. The diversity of Almighty Allah's blessings is revealed in the following verse from the Qur'an;
"And if you would count Allah's favors, you will not be able to number them; most surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful." (Surat an-Nahl, 18)
To give an example of the conveniences which nanotechnology may bring to human life, let us think of a system in which money is never used; let us also imagine that in this system, instead of credit cards there is a card developed by nanotechnology which contains all the information like a persons wages, recent information about his savings, and other documents like his drivers license, passport and student ID's, etc., gathered into this one card. This example is one of the potential conveniences that nanotechnology may bring into our lives.
