2
J. Oliver–Meseguer and A. Leyva–Pérez
Fig. 1.1 Extraction of the
Panacea aurea, sive,
Tractatus duo de ipsius auro
potabili, from Francisci
Antonii
B.C. near Varna (Bulgaria) and reached 10 tons per year in Egypt around 1200–1300
B.C., when the marvelous statue of Touthankamon was constructed, it is probable
that “soluble” Au appeared around the 5th or 4th century B.C. in Egypt and China
[11].
Thus, the discovery of nanoparticles was not a novelty in modern times, the merit
was to discover that they were here. In 1857, Faraday used for the first time the
concept nanoparticle [16], and we had to wait one century for the development of
the nanotechnology after the improvement of the instruments that give access to
the nanometric scale, like the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), promoted by
Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rörher in 1982 (Nobel Prizes awarded in 1986) and the
atomic force microscope (AFM), developed also by Binning with Christoph Gerber
and Calbin Quate in 1987. Two years later, Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer wrote
the letters IBM (where they worked) manipulating 35 Xenon atoms on a Ni surface,
showing the possibility to move atoms from a surface using the tip of the STM
(Fig. 1.2 ).
1.1.2 Differences Between Nanoparticles
and Sub-Nanometer Clusters
A nanoparticle is every particle with dimensions between 1 and 10
3 nm (Fig. 1.3). The
chemical properties of these nanoparticles depend not only on the type of constituent
J. Oliver–Meseguer and A. Leyva–Pérez
Fig. 1.1 Extraction of the
Panacea aurea, sive,
Tractatus duo de ipsius auro
potabili, from Francisci
Antonii
B.C. near Varna (Bulgaria) and reached 10 tons per year in Egypt around 1200–1300
B.C., when the marvelous statue of Touthankamon was constructed, it is probable
that “soluble” Au appeared around the 5th or 4th century B.C. in Egypt and China
[11].
Thus, the discovery of nanoparticles was not a novelty in modern times, the merit
was to discover that they were here. In 1857, Faraday used for the first time the
concept nanoparticle [16], and we had to wait one century for the development of
the nanotechnology after the improvement of the instruments that give access to
the nanometric scale, like the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), promoted by
Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rörher in 1982 (Nobel Prizes awarded in 1986) and the
atomic force microscope (AFM), developed also by Binning with Christoph Gerber
and Calbin Quate in 1987. Two years later, Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer wrote
the letters IBM (where they worked) manipulating 35 Xenon atoms on a Ni surface,
showing the possibility to move atoms from a surface using the tip of the STM
(Fig. 1.2 ).
1.1.2 Differences Between Nanoparticles
and Sub-Nanometer Clusters
A nanoparticle is every particle with dimensions between 1 and 10
3 nm (Fig. 1.3). The
chemical properties of these nanoparticles depend not only on the type of constituent