Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Introduction
Mieczyslaw Jurczyk
a,
*
and Karolina Jurczyk
b
a
Poznan University of Technology, Institute of Materials Science and Engineering,
M. Sklodowska-Curie Sq. 5, 60-695 Poznan, Poland
b
Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology Department,
University of Medical Sciences, Bukowska 70 Street, 60-812 Poznan, Poland
*
mieczyslaw.jurczyk@put.poznan.pl
1.1 Motivation
In 1959 Richard Feynman, a Physics Nobel laureate, presented his
famous idea of nanostructure materials production [17]. He stated:
“The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against
the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom.” Feynman
proceeded to describe building with atomic precision, and outlined a
pathway involving a series of increasingly smaller machines. Today,
it is possible to prepare metal, ceramic, and alloy nanocrystals with
nearly monodispersive size distribution. Nanostructures represent
key building blocks for nanoscale science and technology.
Nanotechnology is a technology that owes its name to the preix
nano
, a Greek word for
dwarf
, as applied to objects that exhibit
billionth (10
-9
) meter dimensions. Recently, nanotechnology has led
to a remarkable convergence of disparate ields including biology,
