Student Resources
The following are links to research and other nanotechnology resources for students.
How do I study the basics of nanotechnology?
Work related to nanotechnology falls into two broad areas: the study of nanotechnology itself (which will remain theoretical, for the time being) and research on enabling technologies leading toward assemblers and nanotechnology (which can be theoretical in part, but which also have an experimental, developmental component).
The theoretical study of nanotechnology involves exploratory engineering work in a number of areas. It includes basic studies in nanomechanical engineering (the study of molecular machines) and nanoelectrical engineering (the study of molecular and atomically-precise nanometer scale electronic systems). It also includes studies of complex systems, such as assemblers, replicators, and nanocomputers. More broadly, it includes studies of non-nanoscale applications, such as large systems built by teams of assemblers.
Inevitably, more resources will go into development than into theory, because technology development will yield practical, short-term results on the way to long-term objectives. It makes no practical sense to try to build an assembler today, but it does make sense to build tools today that will make it easier to build assemblers tomorrow. These tools are termed "enabling technologies."
Promising enabling technologies fall into several familiar categories. These include:
- Protein engineering (involving efforts to develop techniques for designing molecular devices made of protein),
- General macromolecular engineering (involving efforts to develop techniques for designing and synthesizing molecular devices made of more tractable materials)
- Micromanipulation techniques (involving efforts to extend the technology of scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy to chemical synthesis, and then to the construction of molecular devices).
These approaches have differing strengths and weaknesses. Protein engineering can draw on a host of examples and prototypes from nature, and can exploit existing self-replicating machines (bacteria) to make products cheaply ? a major consideration, where short-term payoffs are concerned. General macromolecular engineering avoids the major problem with protein engineering (proteins, not having been designed for designability, are hard to design), but at the cost of moving away from natural prototypes and requiring more expensive chemical synthesis techniques for making near-term products (thus reducing the potential market). Micromanipulation techniques promise to ease design problems by allowing direct construction of molecular objects, but they suffer from higher costs: a chemical reaction typically makes many trillions of molecules at once, while a manipulator would make but one; hence, manipulator-made products can be expected to cost trillions of times more, dramatically reducing the potential market.
All the above areas bear watching, and all will be pursued to some extent, regardless of which ultimately proves to have the biggest payoff. Hybrid approaches, combining techniques from several of these areas (e.g., micromanipulation of molecular tools), seem promising. Finally, improved computational modeling of molecular systems is a generic enabling technology, relevant to all these approaches.
Academic Institutions that offer Nanotechnology Courses or Degree Programs
Amity Institute of Nanotechnology India
http://www.amity.edu/aint/
Asian Institute of Technology Thailand
http://www.nano.ait.ac.th/index.html
Arizona State University United States
http://www.eas.asu.edu/~nano/index.html
Brown University United States
http://en732c.engin.brown.edu
Caltech United States
http://www.wag.caltech.edu/index.html
University of Cambridge United Kingdom
http://www.nanoscience.cam.ac.uk/
Clemson University United States
http://www.ces.clemson.edu/comset/research/nanotech.htm
Cornell University United States
http://www.nbtc.cornell.edu, http://www.cnf.cornell.edu
Delft University of Technology-Kavli Institute of Nanoscience The Netherlands
http://www.ns.tudelft.nl/index.php
Flinders University Australia
http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/nanotechnology/
Georgia Institute of Technology United States
http://www.physics.gatech.edu/rersearch/whetten/
http://www.physics.gatech.edu/rersearch/whetten/
http://www.ee.gatech.edu/research/nanostructure_optoelectronics/
Indian Institute of Technology India
http://www.iitd.ernet.in/
Kaunas University of Technology Lithuania
http://www.microsys.ktu.lt/
Kyushu University Japan
http://edmain.ed.kyushu-u.ac.jp/ed3E.html
Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States
http://nanoweb.mit.edu/
http://web.mit.edu/isn/
Michigan State University United States
http://www.nanotube.msu.edu/
New York University United States
http://www.nyu.edu/pages/chemistry/research/nano.html
North Carolina State University United States
http://www.ncsu.edu/chemistry/
Pennsylvania State University United States
http//www.nnin.org/nnin_psu.html
Princeton University United States
http://www.trnmag.com/Directory/Query_Results/...
http://www.princeton.edu/~chouweb/
Rice University United States
http://cnst.rice.edu/
Seoul National University Korea
http://www.snu.ac.kr/engsnu/
Stanford University United States
http://www-snf.stanford.edu/
Universitat Karlruhe Germany
http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/visitors/index.php
University of Albany United States
http://www.albanynanotech.org/
University of Cincinnati United States
http://www.nanolab.uc.edu
University of Delaware United States
http://www.che.udel.edu/cmet
http://www.ece.udel.edu/cns
University of Glasgow Scotland
http://www.elec.gla.ac.uk/groups/nano/
http://www.elec.gla.ac.uk/groups/nanospec/
http://www.elec.gla.ac.uk/knt/
University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign United States
http://www.beckman.uiuc.edu
http://www.beckman.uiuc.edu/research/stm.html
University of Leeds United Kingdom
http://www.amsta.leeds.ac.uk/cndm/
University of Michigan United States
http://nano.med.umich.edu/
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill United States
http://www.physics.unc.edu/~zhou/muri/
Nanoscale Science Research Group
http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/nano/
University of Notre Dame United States
http://www.nd.edu/~ndnano
University of Southern California United States
http://www-lmr.usc.edu/~lmr
University of Toronto Canada
http://www.utoronto.ca/~ecan
University of Wisconsin Madison United States
http://uw.physics.wisc.edu/~himpsel/wires.html
http://mrsec.wisc.edu/
University of Washington United States
http://www.nano.washington.edu/index.asp
The Center for Nanotechnology
The Center has launched the nation's first Ph.D. program in nanotechnology, an undertaking designed to prepare students as leaders in a world in which scientific discovery and exploitation of nanoscale phenomena and the engineering of the very small will carry the next industrial revolution. The program puts in place a Ph.D. nanotechnology track tied closely to other science and engineering disciplines.
Erasmus Mundus Master Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Coordinator: K.U.Leuven (Belgium)
Four leading research and educational institutions in Europe propose a joint Erasmus Mundus Master Course entitled ?Nanoscience and nanotechnology?. The programme offered is a truly integrated programme, with a strong research backbone and a very important international outreach.
The objective of this course is to provide top quality multidisciplinary education in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The participating partners are:
- Chalmers Tekniska Högskola (Chalmers), Sweden
- Technische Universiteit Delft (TUD) & Universiteit Leiden (UL), The Netherlands
- Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden), Germany
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven),Belgium
The fast evolution of the field requires a strong consortium with noted educational experience in the field. The partners offer this experience. In addition, all the education offered by the consortium is embedded within various research centres (e.g., IMEC in Leuven, Kavli institute of NanoScience in Delft, Max Planck Institute in Dresden, MC2 centre in Chalmers). This strong link between education and research is a guarantee for keeping the education relevant and state-of-the-art.
The master programme has a duration of two years (120 ECTS points). Erasmus Mundus students follow courses at two of these universities. Courses are taught in English. http://www.emm-nano.org/indexnano.php
University of Twente The Netherlands
http://www.mesaplus.utwente.nl/
MESA+ institute for nanotechnology, trains graduate and PhD students, and conducts research in the fields of nanotechnology, microsystems, materials science and microelectronics. Unique to MESA+ is its multidisciplinary composition.
A total of 19 research groups of the faculties Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science (EEMCS) and Science and Technology (S&T) participate in MESA+.
INP-Grenoble, EPF-Lausanne and Politecnico di
Turino - International master in Nanotechnology from three
technological universities
http://www.master-nanotech.com/
Resources for Research and Internships
National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network
http://www.nnin.org/
The National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN) is an integrated networked partnership of user facilities, supported by the National Science Foundation, serving the needs of nanoscale science, engineering and technology. NNIN provides users across the nation, in academia, small and large industry, and government, with open access, both on-site and remotely, to leading-edge tools, instrumentation, and capabilities for fabrication, synthesis, characterization, design, simulation, and integration, to help enable their individual research projects. The NNIN also has extensive education, training and outreach activities.
NNIN came into being on March 1, 2004, and is used by academia, industry, and federal laboratories and from a broad range of disciplines. http://www.nnin.org/nnin_usage.htm
NNIN Research Experience for Undergraduates
http://www.nnin.org/nnin_reu.html
NNIN conducts one of the largest and most successful Research Experience for Undergraduates programs. Over 100 positions will be available in 2005 at the 13 NNIN research sites. Due to the high level of interest in Nanotechnology, over 550 applications were received for our program last year.
Students are assigned to a specific research project and will make a meaningful research contribution to their research group. Each project involves hands-on nanotechnology research with state-of-the-art equipment. Each student will be working on an individual research project, with support from faculty, student mentors, and facility staff.
As a unique feature of our program, at the end of the program, all participants gather for a national research convocation on nanotechnology, where each student presents the results of his/her summer work. This year's convocation will be held at Stanford University, August 10-13,2005.
Arizona State University Student Internships
http://photoscience.la.asu.edu/bionano/internships.htm
The interface between Biomolecular Nanotechnology and commercial enterprise. This is a fine academic concern, but are any real companies interested in developing this kind of technology? Absolutely. We have developed a series of collaborative interactions with companies that involve joint research and student internships. These companies are not only interested in developing the technology, they are interested in the possibility of hiring our students. What companies? How about:
- The Biochip division of Motorola which makes DNA biochips for sensing specific DNA sequences hybridizing to large arrays of DNA probes.
- The Digital DNA division of Motorola which is pushing forward in microfluidics (chemical laboratory on a chip methodologies) and molecular electronics.
- The Reconnaissance division of Lockheed/Martin who is interested in living biosensors.
- Kodak who is interested in molecules that respond to and communicate with light.
- QTL a recently founded company working on smart materials for sensing applications.
- Molecular Imaging a relatively new company which develops Scanning Probe Microscopy for detecting, imaging, characterizing and communicating with molecules on a surface.
These companies are directly involved in our training program, coming to ASU and teaching our students about corporate structure, intellectual property, company research, and entrepreneurial ventures. In addition, they have asked to have interested students come and work with them and learn first hand about how this new technology is being developed at the industrial level.
Zyvex Interns and Co-op Students - http://www.zyvex.com/Jobs/interns.html
Are you at the top of your class and totally into nanotechnology? Do you want to gain real-world experience in this cutting-edge industry? How would you like having the first molecular nanotechnology company listed on your resume when you graduate?
Zyvex has several intern/co-op positions open each semester in a variety of groups, including Research and Product Development. We have interns working on marketing, mechanical engineering, physics, and programming projects. Our interns come from universities all over North America and are of all nationalities. We have a mix of undergraduate and graduate level students here, too.
Nanotechnology Foundation of Texas
Graduate Student Research Fellowships - http://www.nanotechfoundation.org/WWO_fellowships.html
We would be hard pressed to assemble information related to the availability of internship programs, as they are popping up all over the country. We recommend that you check out the presentations of the Foresight Confernces on Molecular Nanotechnology for information on where research is being done. Perhaps in this list you will find a university or organization in your field of interest and in your area. We encourage you to contact these organizations directly for information on internships.
Information of this type may also be posted to Foresight's news and discussion forum - http://nanodot.org
Are scholarships or internships available?
Scholarships are available. We would like to caution you, however, about scholarship searches that want money for their services. If you come across one that requests money, be sure to check it out first.
You may want to try http://www.salliemae.com. It is a good way to quickly and easily find information on scholarships, grants and other sources of financial aid for college.
There is also the http://www.siemens-foundation.org/competition/, which offers scholarships to eligible students. A successful showing in this competition may also lead to internship opportunities with the Siemens Foundation or any number of the collaborating universities, including Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California at Berkeley, University of Notre Dame and the University of Texas at Austin.
Online Courses, Video Tapes and Seminars in Nanotechnology
Stanford University Online Program for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Explore the universe of nanotubes and bucky balls. Expand your vision of a changed world, from the quality of our goods to the quality of our lives. Presenting the latest nanoscience and nanotechnology concepts, the Stanford Engineering and Science Institute will explore the promise of a wide range of exciting new products and applications capable of transforming and redefining many industries. Learn from Stanford faculty and industry experts the potentially broad impacts of nanotechnology for your business. Click Here for Details
European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology (On-Line Nanotechnology Courses)
http://www.euspen.org/default.asp?contentid=503
In the expanding fields of micro and nano technologies, it is essential to provide employees with a broader knowledge base and crosscutting programmes in interdisciplinary fields. With e-learning becoming increasingly important, efficient and cost-effective training is provided to address employee skill sets, improve learning opportunities and facilitate a global learner-centric environment.
The Vision Online training courses will provide you with an overview of the micro and nano technology world combining scientific theory, market realities and up-to-date information from international experts in the fields.
ASME Nanotechnology Institute
http://www.nanotechnologyinstitute.org/
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Nanotechnology Seminars, Tutorials, and Video Tapes
http://www.asme.org/education/techsem/
Northwestern University/NSF/ASME Nanotechnology Summer Institute Videos - Nanoscale Design of Materials
Instructors: Charles Kuehmann and Hern-Jeng Jou, QuesTek Innovations
Price: Member $95/Non-Member $150
These online videos provide fundamentals and recent new developments in selected areas of nanotechnology. The material will be presented at a level accessible to BS graduates of science and engineering programs. Emphasis will be on techniques and theory only recently developed that are not available in texts or standard university courses. The instructors are well known for their research and teaching. http://www.asme.org/education/disted/designofmat.htm
College Level Nanotechnology Survey Seminar
http://nanopedia.cwru.edu/NanoPage.php?page=nanoworlds
Additional Educational Resources
Nanotechnology Now (Additional educational resources including listing of educational institutions)
http://www.nanotech-now.com/academic.htm
Center for Nanoscale Science & Technology (Universities with Nanotechnology Programs
http://www.nanoindustries.com/links/academic.html
Institute of Nanotechnology
http://www.nano.org.uk/job.htm
About Nanotechnology Resources
http://logistics.about.com/od/educatio2/index.htm
NanoStudent
http://www.nanostudent.com
Nanovip.com (Information on nanotechnology education and companies)
http://www.nanovip.com
Resources for Students and Teachers ? Kindergarten through High School
How Stuff Works
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm
NanoKids
http://nanokids.rice.edu/
K-12 Teacher Resources - http://www.nano.gov/html/edu/eduteach.html
Science News for Kids
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/
What's Your Nano IQ?
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/nanotechquiz.htm
Main Street Science
http://www.nbtc.cornell.edu/mainstreetscience/kids.html
NanoStudent
http://www.nanostudent.com/
Resources for Teachers K-12
http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/index.html
It's a NanoWorld
http://www.itsananoworld.org/
Science Friday for Kids
http://www.sciencefriday.com/
Exploring the NanoWorld with LEGO
http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/LEGO/index.html
Nanoscale Science Education
http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/nano/ed/index.html
Nanotechnology School Kits for Middle and High School Education by NanoSonic, Inc.
http://www.nanosonic.com/products/products.html
Nanotechnology Activities
http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/IPSE/educators/index.html
Free Nanotech Course
http://www.glennfishbine.com/course.htm
NanoTechnology Group, Inc.
http://www.thenanotechnologygroup.org/
The purpose and mission of The NanoTechnology Group Inc., is the facilitation of development of innovative Nano-scale Science Education to include subject specific math curriculum targeted for grades Pre-K through 20, featuring Interactive Virtual Nano Science Classrooms for Global access and Virtual Interactive Nano Science Laboratories (nano-lab) for experiential learning.
Nanotechnology Projects and Problems
http://nanopedia.cwru.edu/NanoPage.php?page=projects
Where can I get more information?
Foresight Institute?s web site (http://www.foresight.org) contains more general information about the development of the various aspects of molecular nanotechnology. In particular, refer to Engines of Creation and Unbounding the Future. Both are freely available on our web site. Additional information is available in some issues of the Foresight Update.
Primary Foresight Web Site
http://www.foresight.org
News on Nanotechnology and other Foresight Topics
http://nanodot.org
Nanotechnology and Medicine
http://www.nanomedicine.com
Introductory and Technical Nanotechnology Information
http://www.zyvex.com/nano
Computational Nanotechnology Research
http://www.imm.org
Introductory Nanotechnology Information
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
http://nanotech.about.com
Nanotechnology Research Conference
http://foresight.org/news/index.html
Non-Technical Meeting on Nanotechnology and Related topics, including networking opportunities for business and employment as well as policy discussions.
http://foresight.org/members/index.html
The following list of publications cover topics related to nanotechnology.
Useful books on nanotechnology:
What should I do if this information hasn't answered my question?
We encourage you to contact our office at foresight@foresight.org with your specific question, though we ask that you first exhaust the resources we provide in this document and the Foresight web prior to contacting us directly. Foresight's staff is quite small, and we receive a large number of inquiries on any given day. While we do our best to respond in a prompt and courteous fashion, delays often result. In order to receive the fastest possible execution of your query, please phrase all questions in as detailed a fashion as is possible.
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