Spring Semester

Unit(s) of Assessment	Weighting Towards Module Mark( %)
Written closed book examination	100

Introduction to Nanotechnology

To provide students with an appreciation of current research topics in nanotechnology and an understanding of how research topics influence the development of the field.

At the end of this module students would be expected to: (i)                 be able to demonstrate an understanding of the principles of four topics and (ii)               demonstrate how the technical or devices aspects or implementation of a practical topic are related to fundamental science and engineering.

In each of the topics below the fundamental scientific or engineering principles on   which they are  based are discussed and then extended to practical devices.       1.      MEMS and NEMS (Prof. R Silva – 10 lectures): Fundamentals of MEMS and NEMS design and processing, use in sensors, Microsystems technology and applications Mechanics on the nanoscale.      2.      Energy (Dr M Shkunov - 10 lectures):  introduction to energy, fundamentals of solar cell structure and operation,  common solar materials including c-Si, a-Si, CIGS, organic materials, multi-junction structures.  Structure and operation of fuel cell.  Batteries and supercapacitors.  Current and future challenges.             3.      Modelling on the nanoscale (Prof. O Hess  – 10 lectures):  nanomechanics,  computational nanoscale Fluid Mechanics,  nanothermodynamics: Nonlinear nanodynamics,  Theory of nanophotonics

Lectures: 30 hours lectures in total.

Selected lecture notes and research papers.

Waser. R. (ed) Nanoelectronics and Information Technology:  Advanced Electronic Materials and Novel Devices (Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2003)

30th July 2009