The reason why nanotechnology is coming to the surface now i

The reason why nanotechnology is coming to the surface now is the luxury of having powerful microscopes to see, measure and manipulate matter at Explain briefly one instrument which is used to capture images nanoscale.

Solution

Let us start by taking a famous instrument for measuring extremely small dimensions known as an electron microscope. An electron microscope is different in various aspects from an ordinary microscope. Now an electron microscope measures dimensions of the order pm (Pico metre) 10^-12m.

And Nano-particles are of size of the order of 10^-7m.So, basically an electron microscope can measure a Nano-particle very easily. There are lot of techniques to capture images of nanoparticles at this scale. One of those techniques is ‘Transmission Electron Microscopy’ (TEM).

To get a magnified image of a Nano-particle a Transmission electron microscope fires a beam of electrons through the specimen (in this case a Nano-particle). First of all an electricity supply of high voltage powers the cathode. Cathode is a heated filament like an electron gun like an old-fashioned cathode ray tube TV. Now the electromagnetic coil concentrates the electron in a more powerful beam, that is, increases its intensity. Now the second electromagnetic coil is used to concentrate or focus the beam on a certain part of the specimen (Nano-particle). The particle is placed on a copper grid in the middle of the main microscope tube. The beam passes through the particle and picks an image of it.

Various adjustments can be done to take different images of the Nano-particle. So, this is how an electron microscope is applied to get an image of the Nano-particle.