Home > News > The Science of Small Takes a Big Computer June
21st, 2007 The Science of Small Takes a Big Computer With the
help of Lonestar, a supercomputer at the Texas Advanced
Computing Center, computational physicist James Chelikowsky is
advancing the scientific understanding of nanostructures,
including quantum dots, which have novel properties with
countless potential applications in many industries. Scientists
and engineers are convinced that the fledgling,
interdisciplinary field of nanoscience, the science of very
small structures -- those between 1 and 100 nanometers in
diameter or length -- will drive the next generation of
technological advancements. Just how small is a nanometer? One
nanometer is one-billionth of a meter -- that is 1 X 10-9 meters
or 1/1,000,000,000 of a meter! For perspective, consider that
the width of a human hair is approximately 80,000 nanometers,
and a DNA molecule is about 2.5 nanometers wide. By all
accounts, nanoscience is one of the hottest areas in science and
technolo