Looking at the little tiny world – at things like bilayer formation of cells, veins, and neurons in biological membranes – is becoming more an more sophisticated and productive. The image with this post from page 7of Lecture 6: AFM imaging II: Artifacts and Applications from the MIT lecture notes for a course on Nanomechanics of Materials and Biomaterials. The image originates in the LadyofHats collection of public domain images, which is a source of superb drawings of dinosaurs, biology, and other subjects.
A general article describing micro and nanomechanics is available on the IMES Institute of Mechanical Systems website. This is its introductory overview:
Micro- and nanomechanics are concerned with the modelling, design, fabrication and application of three-dimensional structures and systems with dimensions in the range of micrometers and below. These systems incorporate a number of interesting features: The classical fabrication methods of micromachining are extended by those developed in the semiconductor industry during the passed decades. Different quantities scale differently when moving from large to small structures demanding new models to describe the physical behaviour observed on a small scale.Devices used to perform a certain function and found to be optimal for the macroscopic scale are replaced by others exploiting various physical effects suited to the microscopic world.
Last but not least, the limits of classical continuum mechanics have to be explored and extended. New methods need to be developed in order to quantify bonding properties between different layers, residual stresses which are caused by manufacturing processes as well as the elastic constants itself, just to mention a few examples.