The nebulous field of nanotechnology, freighted with as much hype as legitimate promise, boils down to the process of manipulating matter on a molecular scale (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, about the width of ten hydrogen atoms).

FORBES: The Science of Small

If the light were not infrared but were instead in the visible spectrum, there was enough of it that the naked eye could have seen a glow, according to Phaedon Avouris , manager of nanometer scale science and technology at IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) Research Laboratories in Yorktown Heights, N.

FORBES: IBM Makes Molecule-Sized Light

Toyota has combined polypropylene and rubber at the nanometer scale to make a bumper that is as rigid as the usual 4-millimeter bumper but almost 60% thinner.

FORBES: The Science of Small

Toyota has combined polypropylene and rubber at the nanometer scale to make a bumper that is as rigid as the usual 4-millimeter one but almost 60% thinner.

FORBES: The science of small