Nanocrystals are small collections of several hundred to hundred thousand atoms arranged in a crystal matrix. Quantum dots are nanocrystals made of semiconductors, and the several hundred atoms act like one giant molecule with regards to their electrons with variations in energy levels due to the size of the dot. The smaller the dot, the higher photon energy released during fluorescence.

This video was compiled from fluorescing colloidal quantum dots of different sizes excited by an argon laser. The dots are invisible (with one exception in a microscope at 2:14) but they produce the bright colors in the beam. The bits of bright blue flashes are dust particles in the solutions.

Molecular dynamics simulation

A "nanohand" is a small gripper, small enough to manipulate nanotubes and nanofibres. This movie show how to pick and place nanofibres using a nanohand, to construct a nanodevice: a super-probe for atomic force microscopy. It takes a lot of work to get this far; and much more to get further: how about a virtual reality world where you can pick nanotubes with your own hands, while the nanogripper does it with 10000 times smaller fingers? How about an assembly line, a factory for building nanotube devices? Two big european projects, Nanorac and Nanohand, are now trying to make this reality.

At one tube end, stable lip-lip interactions [see Y.K. Kwon et al., Phys. Rev. Lett 79, 2065 (1997)] bridge the gap between the inner and the outer tube, while the other end is kept open. Atoms inside the tube are shown in green and exposed edge atoms in blue. The extra atoms, which establish the lip-lip interaction, are shown in red.

Nanoart is a discipline that can be located in a research area where art, science and technology cnverge. Nanoart yields nanostructures created by scuentusts by means of chemical and/or physical processes and they are visualized with powerful tools like atomic force microscopy. In this way, the joint use of both art and science is capable to transform complex systems in simple to understand the origin, and then, control these novel properties with innovative technological applications can be attained