A square mil (abbreviated as sq mil or mil²) is a unit of area measurement used primarily in the United States for very small areas, especially in the context of electrical engineering and wire gauge measurements. One square mil is equal to one square thousandth of an inch or one square mil (0.000001 square inches).
In terms of modern metric units, one square mil is approximately equal to 6.4516 square micrometers (µm²) because there are 25.4 micrometers in one thousandth of an inch (1 mil).
Square mils are often used when specifying the cross-sectional area of wires, particularly in electrical and electronic engineering. For example, the American Wire Gauge (AWG) system uses square mils to represent the cross-sectional area of wires, with smaller wire sizes having fewer square mils, and larger wire sizes having more square mils.
A square nanometer (often abbreviated as nm²) is a unit of area in the International System of Units (SI) and is used to describe extremely small areas, especially in the context of nanotechnology and scientific research.
One square nanometer is equal to one billionth of a square meter (1 x 10^-9 m²). In other words, it takes one billion square nanometers to make up one square meter.
To give you a sense of scale, a square nanometer is incredibly tiny. It's often used to describe the size of individual atoms, molecules, or the features on nanoscale devices. Nanotechnology deals with structures and materials on this extremely small scale, where traditional units of area, like square meters or even square millimeters, are impractical.