Convert Nanometer (nm) to Attometer (am) instantly.
About these units
Nanometer (nm)
A nanometer—one billionth of a meter (10⁻⁹ m)—is central to nanoscience, nanotechnology, and molecular biology. Many structures essential to life fall into this scale: DNA's double helix is about 2 nm wide, viruses often measure tens to hundreds of nanometers, and key cell structures like ribosomes are on the order of 20–30 nm. In engineering, nanometers define the dimensions of modern semiconductor technology. Silicon transistors have shrunk to features only a few nanometers wide, approaching the physical limits of electron behavior in solid-state materials. In optics, wavelengths of ultraviolet light can be expressed in nanometers, as can surface roughness, material grain sizes, and thin-film coatings. The nanometer is ubiquitous across modern science because it describes both biological and technological structures at the frontier of research.
Attometer (am)
An attometer is 10⁻¹⁸ meters, a scale so small that it lies far below the size of atoms. At this scale, conventional physics loses intuitive meaning, and the unit appears primarily in theoretical models dealing with subatomic phenomena, quantum interactions, and particle scattering. While extremely rare in practical measurement, the attometer helps frame discussions of hypothetical distances involved in exotic particles or proposed physics beyond the Standard Model. Because fundamental particles like quarks may have effective sizes or interaction radii that flirt with attometer magnitudes, the unit serves as a conceptual tool for physicists exploring the limits of the measurable universe. It also provides a means to express extraordinarily small wavelengths in high-energy physics contexts.