ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Nanofabrication

Nanofabrication means making VERY small things. It's like making tiny Lego blocks that are so small you can't even see them without a special machine called a microscope.

The people who make nanofabricated things are like super-cool scientists who use really fancy machines and tools to carefully shape and mold materials into these tiny structures.

Imagine you have a cookie cutter that makes cookies that are so small you could fit a hundred of them on your pinky finger. Nanofabrication is like using those tiny cookie cutters to make even tinier things.

These tiny things are so small that they can't be seen with the naked eye. They're made up of atoms, which are the tiny building blocks that everything is made of.

Nanofabrication is important because it lets us create new materials with special properties. For example, scientists might make a super-thin layer of material that can capture energy from the sun better than anything else. Or they might make tiny particles that can deliver medicine right to where it's needed in the body.

Overall, nanofabrication is like making incredibly intricate works of art, but instead of using paint or clay, the artists use atoms and machines that are so precise they can be controlled down to billionths of a meter.