Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea

Other Materials

Nanoscience and technology focus on materials: physical and solid objects. Traditionally, materials science has been devoted to three large classes of materials—metals, polymers, and ceramics. We have just discussed metals, so let's look at the other two.

The most common polymers are plastics. They are sometimes called macromolecules to convey the sense that they are extremely large by molecular standards (though generally not big enough for a human to see individually, as the prefix “macro” would normally suggest). Most polymers are based on carbon because carbon has an almost unique ability to bond to itself. Polymers are single molecules formed of repeating patterns of atoms (called monomers) connected in a chain. In a sample ...