Nanotechnologies, from fundamentals to applications

Nanosciences and nanotechnologies can be defined as the sciences and technologies of nanoscopic systems. They are thus perceived as a small revolution, as their high handling capacity allows for a large number of achievements. This article examines this context, from fundamentals to applications. Some definitions as well as fundamental aspects such as scaling laws and nanosystems are provided. Various tools (local probe microscopes, optical techniques and others) and several major application domains (nanoelectronics, biotechnologies, biomedical domain and aerospatial sector) are then presented.