Size matters - this illustration shows size comparisons, from picometers and nanometers to decimeters and meters.

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Transmission electron microscope images (lower resolution on top, lattice fringe image below) of nanoparticles that have self-oriented with respect to each other and assembled to form an elongate single crystal. This growth mechanism contrasts with the classical atom-by-atom growth pathway (Penn and Banfield, Science, 1998).

Credit: Dr. Jillian Banfield, University of of California at Berkeley

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This photo is a scanning electron micrograph of frog neurons on top of the world's first 4-Mbit DRAM integrated circuit, produced at Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas in 1985. The image shows that semiconductor technology is already reaching scales on the order of biological elements.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Texas Instruments

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An aluminum single-electron trap fabricated in the laboratory of Prof. James Lukens (SUNY at Stony Brook). The trap was successfully tested for capturing and holding a single electron in a 30x40x120 nm^3 island for at least 12 hours at low temperatures (below 1 Kelvin.) Single-electron circuits are considered the most likely replacement of the mainstream CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) chips when nanometer-scale VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration) fabrication technologies have been developed. For a review see, e.g., K. Likharev, Proc. IEEE vol. 87, pp. 606-632, Apr. 1999.

Credit: Dr. Konstantin Likharev, State University of New York at Stony Brook

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Composite SEM images showing biological force microscopy. Nanometer by nanometer, a mineral (or another surface) approaches, makes contact with, and then withdraws from a bacterium on a force sensing cantilever. The cantilever bends due to attractive or repulsive forces between the cell and mineral. This deflection is monitered by reflecting a laser off the top of the cantilever and into a detector. In so doing, nanoscale forces can be measured in real time between a living cell and another material in solution.

Credit: Steven Lower, Department of Geology, University of Maryland

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This representation of a DNA cube shows that it contains six different cyclic strands. Their backbones are shown in red (front), green (right), yellow (back), magenta (left), cyan (top) and dark blue (bottom). Each nucleotide is represented by a single colored dot for the backbone and a single white dot representing the base. Note that each edge of the cube is a piece of double helical DNA, containing two turns of the double helix.

Credit: Dr. Nadrian Seeman, Department of Chemistry, New York University

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The image is of a short length of a single walled carbon nanotube, open at one end, closed at the other, and wrapped with a solubilizing polymer molecule (polystyrene sulfonate).

Credit: Dr. Richard E. Smalley, Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics, Rice University

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The image illustrates the manufacture of catenanes that are sandwiched between two perpendicular electrodes. Catenanes are nanostructures which can be electrochemically-controlled to circumrotate.

Credit: Dr. Anthony Pease, Laboratory of Professor Fraser Stoddart, University of California, Los Angeles

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The two above images demonstrate how silicon polymer nanowires can detect trace amounts of explosives. The ticket was impregnated with silicon polymer nanowires. The ticket glows in ultraviolet light, however luminescence is quenched where touched by a TNT-contaminated thumb.

Credit: H. Sohn, M.J. Sailor, and W.C. Trogler, University of California at San Diego

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The image demonstrates how silicon polymer nanowires can detect trace amounts of explosives. The polymer was sprayed onto paper, which glows green in ultraviolet light. Luminescence is quenched where a TNT-contaminated hand touched the paper.

Credit: H. Sohn, M.J. Sailor, and W.C. Trogler, University of California at San Diego

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Pictured are polystyrene nanoparticles dynamically deposited into Poly (dimethylsiloxane) grooves.

Credit: Dr. Gilbert Walker, Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh

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Theoretical flow of electrons in a two dimensional electron gas away from an electron source at the center. The same scattering that produces diffusion creates static branches of electron flow. This image appeared on the cover of Nature in March, 2001.

Credit: Eric Heller, Lyman Laboratory of Physics, Harvard University

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