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All of the things people produce and use are made of atoms. Many of those things are composed of essentially the same kinds of atoms. For example, cotton, aspirin, sugar, vanillin, Mylar(r) (balloons and cassette tapes), tetrahydrocannabinol and testosterone are all composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. It is just the number of atoms and the discrete grouping of those atoms into definite geometrical arrangements that result in such diverse products.
The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. In the past, products with the properties we desired were manufactured from the macro-level down to the molecular level needed. It is analogous to stripping down the World Trade Center floor by floor and brick by brick to build your house.
Nanotechnology strives to control the arrangement of atoms so materials can be manufactured from the atom up, rather than from the bulk materials down. Nanotechnology is fabricating devices that are smaller and smaller. Products being developed that are built atom-by-atom include computer hardware technologies, medical technologies, and an entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter, and more precise.
Computer hardware devices fabricated by nano-lithography produce lines that are only nanometers in width.
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