NUE: Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education and Emphasis at Utah State University

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This Nanotechnology in Undergraduate Education (NUE) award to Utah State University is to support Professors Haeyeon Yang, Jon Takemoto, Tapas Kar, Leijun Li and Yangquan Chen, who as a team will develop an interdisciplinary effort in physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, and will create a series of courses describing concepts and techniques related to nanotechnology. In the first phase, a course will be developed for first-year undergraduate students entitled "Nanotechnology", which will be a general education, University Study, course. The course will stress on qualitative, conceptual approaches and will consist of five modules from biology, chemistry, electrical/mechanical engineering, and physics. These modules will be based on each participating PIs' relative research fields and interests. Later, these modules will be evolved to the following four separate courses for sophomores: (1) Physics of Nanotechnology; (2) Chemistry aspects of Nanomaterials; (3) Nanomechatronics; and (4) Synthesis and Fabrication of Nanomaterials. Students taking these four along with "Nanotechnology" course will be eligible to apply for "Emphasis in Nanotechnology" in addition to their respective BS degrees. A supplementary laboratory course, which will stress hands-on experience on actual nano-fabrications and characterizations, will also be developed. Examples of fabrication are "self-assembly" using molecular beam epitaxy and the bottom-up approach using scanning probe microscope (SPM). Examples for the characterization will be based on SPM for the fabricated nanostructures.