Pharmaceutical Sciences

Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scales. The earliest and most widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the specific technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules to produce products on a large scale, which is now called molecular nanotechnology. A more general description of nanotechnology was then established by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which defines nanotechnology as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension between 1 and 100 nanometres. This definition reflects the fact that quantum mechanical effects are important at this scale of the quantum realm, and the definition has therefore evolved from a particular technological focus to a category of research encompassing all types of research and technologies that deal with special properties of matter below the given size threshold. It is therefore common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to the wide range of research and applications whose common feature is size.