These "dominoes" are actually tiny magnesium nanoparticles. Scientists at Argonne use a technique called chemical vapor deposition to create unusual materials to study how nanoparticles form and what makes them behave the way they do, which helps us design new technologies. (This is a true-color image taken straight from a scanning electron microscope.) Magnesium is a chemical element with symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is the 9th most abundant element in the universe. Nanoparticles are particles between 1 and 100 nanometers in size. In nanotechnology, a particle is defined as a small object that behaves as a whole unit with respect to its transport and properties. Particles are further classified according to diameter. Nanoparticle research is currently an area of intense scientific interest due to a wide variety of potential applications in biomedical, optical and electronic fields. Nanotechnology (nanotech) is the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. This image has been color enhanced.