Download NE Technical Elective Descriptions Winter 2017

NE Technical Elective Descriptions For Winter 2017
NE 459 Nanotechnology Engineering Research Project
Instructor: B. Cui
In this elective students will apply engineering principles to study and design a material, device,
process, or component. Students will arrange for a faculty member to act as their project
supervisor, and another faculty member to read and grade his/her final report. Students may
propose a topic of their choice or work with their supervisor to define a topic. A written report is
required at the end of the term. There are no scheduled lectures, tutorials, or labs as this is an
independent research project.
NE 469 - Topic 4
Special Topics in Micro &Nanoinstruments
Tactile Sensors
Instructor: V. Maheshwari
Nanotechnology is a field where sensors and instruments such as electronic nose and touch
sensitive films that mimic human senses are being developed. Touch being one of the five basic
senses, results from a complex interplay of sensor elements, embedded in skin, a soft polymer
matrix. Touch sensors are needed for development of robots in manufacturing and surgery and
humanoids, unmanned vehicles for terrain and space exploration and also touch screen
electronics.
The course will cover the basics of human skin for sensing touch. The details of multiple touch
receptors in skin and their characteristics will be discussed. Also covered will be the basics of
neural impulse generation and encoding of tactile signals and the morphology of skin as a touch
device. Current methods and principles used to fabricate touch sensors/instruments will also be
presented.
The course will then focus on the use of FET (field effect transistor) and electron tunneling based
touch sensors using nanomaterials. The working principle, structure-property relationship,
performance and limitations will be covered. Ways of improving the sensor performance based
on the skins structure and sensing methods will discussed for future developments.
Emphasis will be on translating the properties of nanomaterials into functional device
performance. Flexibility is a criterion that is being actively developed for wearable electronics
and sensors. In tactile sensors this is a required characteristic. Basics of flexibility in electronic
devices under both bending and stretching will also be covered.
NE 469 - Topic 7 Special Topics in Micro &Nanoinstruments
DNA Biosensors & Nanotechnology
Instructor: J. Liu
This course covers the use of nucleic acids and proteins for designing various biosensors,
nanoscale devices, and high throughput screen assays for environmental monitoring, disease
diagnosis, imaging, and drug discovery. After a brief review on the fundamental biochemistry of
DNA, RNA, and protein, and physical principles of various signal transduction mechanisms, the
combination of these two systems for biosensor design will be extensively covered. Special
emphasis will be put on DNA-based sensors and devices.
NE 479 - Topic 1 Special Topics in Nanotelectronics
Organic Electronics
Instructor: H. Aziz
The course gives an overview of organic electronic and optoelectronic devices. It begins with a
review of electronic structure of single organic molecules as a guide to the electronic behaviour of
organic aggregates. Various relevant material phenomena are reviewed; including topics from
photophysics (absorption and emission of light, excited states, radiative and non-radiative
transitions), intermolecular charge transport mechanisms (hopping, disorder), charge injection and
transport models, and energy transfer processes. Their applications in light emitting devices, solar
cells, thin film transistors, photodetector and imaging photoreceptors, etc. are discussed. Aspects
related to device fabrication and patterning may also be addressed.
NE 479 - Topic 3
Special Topic in Nanoelectronics
Microfluidic & Nanobiotech Sys
Instructor: C. Backhouse
This course will cover the principles underlying modern nanobiotechnologies and the design and
fabrication of devices and systems built upon them. Students will be familiarized with the
relevant technologies and will learn how some of the principles of engineering design differ
between nanobiotechnology and more macroscopic engineering. Students will learn how to apply
some of the fundamental tools, for instance to design a genetic diagnostic (e.g. primer design via
bioinformatics) and simple nanomachines. At the same time, modern micro/nanoelectronics and
micro/nanofabrication are enabling fundamentally new instrumental systems (e.g. lab-on-chip
diagnostics, DNA sequencers, nanoelectronics and ultra-high density data storage) and the
student will learn what some of the design challenges are with these new systems, and how to
design them. Applications in fields such as computing, electronics, human health, environment
and manufacture will be discussed, along with an exploration of the underlying challenges.
The first 2 weeks of this course will be a recapitulation of relevant materials from past courses.
The students will become conversant with the standard tools and design methods of
nanobiotechnology, ranging from medical diagnostic design to molecular machines. Finally, the
course will explore the frontiers of systems biology, synthetic biology and quantum biology.
Approximate Schedule:
Week 1 : Laws, flow, forces and physics at small scales
Week 2 : Molecular transport and interface
Week 3 : Life science instrumentation and microdevices
Week 4 : Methods in molecular biology
Week 5 : Tools for genetic analysis
Week 6 : Advanced genetic application
Week 7 : Proteins as building blocks
Week 8 : Design principles and methods
Week 9 : Molecular machines and their fabrication
Week 10 : Recombinant and green manufacture
Week 11 : Systems biology and synthetic biology
Week 12 : Quantum biology and devices
NE 489 - Topic 3 Special Topics in Nanoscale Biosystems
Topics in Nanomedicine
Instructor: E. Yim
The course provides an overview of the recent advances in nanomedicine and nano-scaled
medical devices. Strategies and technologies for formulation and manufacturing processes used
in pharmaceutics, tissue-engineering products and biological applications will be introduced.
Challenges in manufacturing and commercialization for nano-structured biomedical applications
will also be discussed.
NE 499 - Topic 2 Special Topics in Nanostructured Materials
NanoMaterials & Sustainable Energy
Instructor: Dr. Yuning Li
Printed electronics have wide-spread and ubiquitous applications including flexible displays,
smart labels, intelligent packaging, solar cells, sensors, batteries, capacitors, wearable
electronics, thermoelectric devices, photodetectors, memory devices, etc. It is envisioned that
printed electronics will grow into a huge global market in the near future. The surge of printed
electronics is primarily due to the availability of enabling materials that can be “printed” into
electronics. In addition to the printability or solution-processability, adequate optoelectrical
performance and stability are equally important. Materials for printed electronics encompass all
types of materials in terms of the electrical conductivity: insulators, semiconductors, and
conductors, whereas the development of the printable semiconductors and conductors is more
critical and challenging. The nanometer-scale structure of printable electronic materials has been
playing a key role in addressing the printability and/or dictating the electrical performance and
the stability of the devices. Therefore synthesis of nanostructured materials through appropriate
chemical and physical methods and control of the nanostructure formation by processing and
post-deposition techniques have been the most extensively studied areas in this field. This course
will provide an introduction to printed electronics, followed by discussions on some
representative printable semiconductors and conductors.
NE 499 - Topic 4 Special Topics in Nanostructured Materials
Supramolecular polymerization for Nanomaterial Synthesis
Instructor: X. Wang
Supramolecular polymerization has emerged as a powerful synthetic technique for designed
preparation of nanostructures. While building up fundamental knowledge, a wide range of new
concepts for novel materials have been created, such as adaptive responsive, actuating, selfhealing, emanating directly from noncovalent self-assembled ordered structures. The potential
applications for these assemblies range from new catalysts and medicine to biocompatible tissues
and nanodevices. The class will start from the introduction to non-covalent interactions, followed
by literature discussion on several topics including self-assembling building blocks, designed
supramolecular synthesis and material applications.
Course content:
1. Introduction
Non-covalent interactions; Supramolecular chemistry; Supramolecular polymerization
2. Building blocks and their self-assembly behaviour
Organic molecules, Organometallic molecules, Polymers, Nanoparticles
3. Designed supramolecular synthesis
Co-operative assembly; Self-sorting assembly; Living self-assembly
4. supramolecular polymer materials
Catalysts, nanoreactors, biomedicals, sensors, self-healing materials etc.
General reading: Supramolecular polymers 2nd Edition. Edited by Alberto Ciferri Related research papers and literature reviews will be provided.