05050 ENGR ENMA Add Minor in Nanoscience and Technology

This minor is designed to be accessible and available to any student majoring in
Engineering, Physics or Chemistry & Biochemistry. It is open to all students who have
the necessary prerequisites to enroll in the courses which constitute the minor.
Structure of NS&T Minor
Nanoscience and Technology is a broad field, with a number of different major
directions; partial list would include fabrication of extremely densely integrated logic or
storage elements for computing, development of nanomaterials for catalysis or sensing
applications, soft nanotechnology, and bio/nanotechnology. To allow for different areas
of interest we have included a number of courses with overlapping subjects but different
emphasis. To meet the University’s requirement that minors be structured to provide
students with a coherent field of study and a carefully considered intellectual justification,
rather than a random choice of courses from current offerings in a major we have
assembled model programs. These will provide the necessary coherence and intellectual
merit, while reflecting individual directions in NS&T. We see the interdisciplinary
nature of these programs as crucial to the intellectual merit of the NS&T minor; by taking
courses in a number of departments, the student gains a broader view of this field. We
describe model programs in the last section of this proposal.
The programs of study will be constructed so as to avoid duplication of material,
e.g, a student taking Quantum Physics (PHYS401) will not also receive credit toward the
NS&T minor for Modern Physics (PHYS420) or Quantum Mechanics (ENEE489Q). We
have also settled upon four overall approaches as describing most of what goes on in
Nanoscience & Technology: (1) Fabrication and Synthesis of nanostructures, i.e. how
they are made (2) Characterization of nanostructures, including how the properties and
function of nanostructures (e.g. transport) are measured or determined (3) Fundamental
science which serves as a basis for NS&T and (4) Application areas of NS&T.