In-Depth Resources for the Distinction Track Help Center Learn more.

These resources are targeted for those on the statement of accomplishment with distinction track. Some of the in-depth quiz material could come this content. However, all students are welcome to explore the resources listed here.

Week 1


In-Depth Extra Lecture: Converting and Estimating (video=19:41)

In-Depth Extra Lecture: Converting and Estimating (pdf)

Nanofruit Worksheet (xls)

Week One In-Depth Handout

The Great Nanotechnology Debate: In Small Talk episode #1, Professors Colvin and Mittleman mention a debate between Rick Smalley and EricDrexler called 'fat fingers, sticky fingers." This 2003 point/counterpoint is a great conversation about whether molecular assemblers are indeed possible. Rick Smalley coined the term 'fat fingers, sticky fingers' to refer to what he perceived to be the problems with Drexler's vision. A great read and a good summary of the main issues.

Week 2:

This article, from Doug Natelson's group at Rice, is a follow-up on our conversation with him about energy dissipation mechanisms on the nanoscale (see the Small Talk episode for Week 2). This paper describes measurements of "noise", that is, random fluctuations in the current, as it flows through a nanoscale junction. This is a great example of a highly sophisticated measurement to infer information about conduction and dissipation on the nanoscale. http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.6639

This article, from a group at Rice led by Junichiro Kono, discusses the properties of metallic carbon nanotubes, and their fundamental physical properties. This article gives good background on the electronic properties of these one-dimensional metals, and discusses the implications for their interactions with light. It also includes the latest information on techniques for separating metallic tubes from semiconducting tubes, which is a necessary step in using nanotubes for electronic components. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.5239.pdf

Week 3:

Below are the articles you can read for the peer assessment and extra credit quiz. Note that some of this covers week 4 material, so should be considered a week3/week4 assignment as it covers both aspects of photonics and magnetics. Because these articles come from the journal PLOS one we are able to share them with you in a pdf format on this website because they are open source. You can always go to the PLOS one website yourself and search for other nano articles to read. It has a bit of a biology bent to it, but still lots of good stuff to read. These are relatively short articles - and we do not expect you to get every detail in them. Our advice is to read the abstract, look at the figures and figure captions, then read through the paper looking up words you are not familiar with. Some like Ying and Baumgartner have a fair bit of chemistry in them that we will not be asking about.

This article is about size-dependent magnetism; it is more of a nanoscience article, than a nanotechnology article but still helpful at reinforcing the ideas of week 3. It is referred to as Baumgartner 2013

This article is a combination of magnetic separation (e.g. not using nanoparticles) and quantum dots for detection. It is referred to in the materials as Liandris 2011

This article is about quantum dots and cellular imaging. It is Ying 2008

Week 4:

Here are a few articles on advanced topics in nanophotonics.  These will follow on the discussions in the lectures.

The first article is on the topic of quantum computation using semiconductor nanophotonic components.  The idea of quantum computation is to use quantum states, rather than the classical ones and zeros, to represent information.  This has the potential to completely change the way computation is done, and could enable calculations that are now so huge as to be completely intractable.  So far, there are many technological challenges that remain to be overcome in order to build a quantum computer that can realize this potential. The article linked here, by Van Meter and colleagues, discusses one hybrid approach which uses both semiconductor nanophotonic components as well as the quantum states of photons in a design that could, in principle, be scalable to a useful size.  http://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.2686v2.pdf

The second article, from the group of Willie Padilla at Boston College, discusses the use of metamaterial ideas for modifying the blackbody emission from hot objects.  Normally, the blackbody spectrum is considered to be a fundamental property of an object at a given temperature, since all objects emit broadband blackbody radiation.  However, by covering the material with an appropriately designed metamaterial surface, one can introduce structure into this emission spectrum.  This could be important for energy harvesting, or for masking the infrared signatures of objects. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1105.2708v1.pdf