Griffin Nicoll of Seattle took a seat at the controls of the $150,000 electron microscope, hit a couple of buttons and within seconds was in the world of nanotechnology, examining a computer microchip under 50,000-power magnification.

"This is cool," the 13-year-old student said while staring at a video screen revealing the tiniest details and imperfections in the chip.

"It's so exact and you can actually see the particles," he said.

Griffin was one of more than 80 middle-school students who spent the day immersed in nanotechnology at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland as part of a Northwest regional seminar sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth.

Getting a chance to manipulate the controls of the electron microscope was one aspect of the daylong visit, which included a dozen different nanotechnology seminars.

Nanotechnology has been defined as manipulating materials on a molecular scale to produce microscopic devices. It involves biology, physics, chemistry and engineering.

For students like Griffin and 14-year-old Alix Crilly of Wenatchee, the day was a head-first immersion into deep science that overwhelmed some and inspired others. From electron microscopes to nano robots to carbon nanotubes and ion beam analysis, the students explored a world that is measured in billionths of a meter.

"I learned a lot about nanotechnology and how it can affect the future. It's such a versatile form of science," said Alix, who is a ninth-grade student at Wenatchee High School and is thinking about a career in forensics.

The seminar at the Richland lab was one of seven planned by Johns Hopkins University in 2004 at sites across the country. This year's topic was nanoscale science and engineering, and it was the first time the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was invited to be a host site, said Don Baer, a Battelle employee who is deputy manager for the laboratory's nanoscience and nanotechnology initiative.

Baer recruited the seminar leaders, drawing from scientists and researchers at the University of Idaho, University of Washington and University of Oregon, as well as some of the laboratory's employees.

Students who visited the ion beam analysis lab stepped into a room packed with $4 million worth of specialized equipment encased in stainless steel and surrounded by tubes, computers and wiring.

Theva Thevuthasan, a researcher in the lab explained how ion beams can create a combination of materials on a silicon wafer and then, by bombarding the newly created sandwich with ions, analyze and test its properties.

Everything is done inside a vacuum chamber to minimize contamination, he said.

Brian Pultz, a visiting researcher at the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory who is a student at San Joaquin Delta College in California, gave Nicoll and his teammates the hands-on tour of the electron microscope, which has the capability of peering into the nanoworld with its 200,000-power magnification.

Students who came from throughout the Pacific Northwest had to take a test offered by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth. The students who were selected came to the seminar with their parents.

Kriss Crilly, Alix's mother, said attending the nanotechnology seminar is helping her daughter evaluate the colleges she may be interested in for a future career in science.