NUE: Unconventional Patterning at the Nanoscale: Bottom-up Synthesis Meets Top-Down Fabrication

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This Nanotechnology in Undergraduate Education (NUE) award by Divisions of Materials Research (MPS) and Engineering Education and Centers (ENG) to Northwestern University supports Professors Teri W. Odom in Chemistry and Vinayak P. Dravid in Materials Science and Engineering to develop two research-based courses on nanoscale patterning for undergraduate students in their second year. The course contents include: (i) hands-on research experience on top-down fabrication and bottom-up synthesis; (ii) training in nanoscale characterization tools; and (iii) the design of research projects using advanced and bench-top nanoscale patterning. These inquiry-based courses are designed to integrate concepts and methods in science, engineering, and system design for students at the early stage of their academic development. Students will work with their peers on group research projects and design independent ones using the course content. The course content developed by this award (web-based modules, multi-media presentations, and interactive lab manuals) will be integrated in to core classes and distributed through web resources. Relatively simple and cheap experiments that are being developed by this award could be used in teaching nanotechnology at institutions, which don't have the infrastructure for nanotechnology. Strong models that are being designed by this award could be adapted elsewhere, and would generate better-trained science and engineering students.