STM Scanning Tunneling Microscope What is a Nanometer? (Activity) Developed by Malory M. Peterson, Summer 2006 Nanotechnology Grant National Science Foundation #

Let’s Start by Reviewing Size Take a look at the meter stick that is provided. (Your colors may vary from the ones on the example). The whole stick (all colors) is one meter long.

Decimeter 1/10 of a meter is represented by the blue, pink, and green end. 1/10 of a meter is called a decimeter.

Centimeter 1/10 of a decimeter is represented by the pink and green. 1/10 of 1/10 is 1/100. 1/100 of a meter is called a centimeter.

millimeter If we take just the green section that is 1/10 of 1/10 of 1/10. This is also 1/10 of 1/100, or 1/10 of a millimeter. Also, 1/1000 of a meter. This is called a millimeter

Review We have just divided the meter stick into 10ths. We did this 3 times and ended up with millimeters.

micrometer Imagine we took just the green millimeter and divided that into 10ths three times, like we did before. This would give us something very small. This would be 1/1,000,000 of a meter or a micrometer.

nanometer If we took that micrometer and divided it into tenths, three times, we would get something on the atomic level. This is one billionth (1/1,000,000,000) of a meter. This is a nanometer

STM The STM images on the nanometer scale. This would be the same as taking a meter stick and dividing it into ten pieces 9 times! This is why the nanometer is symbolized by meters can also be written as meters or 1 E- 9 meters. Atoms and molecules can only be “seen” on the nanometer scale.