• Question: Please could you define nanoparticles?

    Asked by alses002 to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 2 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Philippa Bird

      Philippa Bird answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Quite simply, a particle that has at least one dimension between 1nm (nanometre) and 100nm in length. 1 nanometre, to help you visualise it, is one billionth of a metre. It is the diameter of a strand of DNA. If you made a huge tower of a billion pound coins reaching up into the sky, and then put one pound coin next to it, that’s how much smaller a nanometre is than a metre.
      My nanoparticles are 100nm in diameter, spherical and made of silica. They have holes in them for the drugs.

    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      So what is a particle called that’s smaller than 1 nm?

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      @Tom, you’re almost at the scale of single atoms for things less than 1nm (Atoms are about 0.1nm in diameter).

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