
I am currently about 5-6 weeks into the second semester nanoscience course. This course is primarily focused on giving the students a background in electronics, electronic devices and microfabrication using photolithography. Eventually the students will take this course concurrently with Fundamentals of Nanoscience I. This course might be more appropriately titled "Introduction to Microfabrication" or "Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology"
The textbook I use is entitled "Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology" by Michael Quirk and Julian Serda. I have used a variety of different books for this course but this one has been working out really well for what I want to cover this semster. Following is a week by week schedule for this course:
Introduction and Review
The electronics industry
Electrical symbols and schematics
Electrical properties of materials
Introduction to CAD (PCB)
Ohms Law and Resistance
Resistors and resistivity
Semiconductors, transistors and active devices
Clean rooms
Fabrication process overview
Thin Films 1
Photo 1
Etch 1
Vacuum systems and compressed gases
Plasmas
Thin Films 2
Photo 2
Etch 2
Students in this semester are required to complete the following:
Fabricate a printed circuit board and solder devices to create a functional circuit
Perform a cross sectional analysis of a computer chip and obtain SEM and EDS analysis
Pattern a metallized wafer in the clean room.
Final project/poster that includes at a minimum: 1 SEM image, 1 AFM image, 1 EDS analysis. The poster may be on any topic the students choose but they are encourged to work with local industry to complete their project.
Students also receive points for time spent using the SEM and AFM.
Students this semester are also taking the first semester of a Cell Biology course. The text book is Essential Cell Biology by Alberts et al.
Ideally we would like to balance our three thrust areas each semester:
1. Micro and nanofabrication (clean room, photolithography)
2. Materials characterization (Nanomaterials, SEM, AFM, EDS, XRD etc)
3. Biotechnology (Cell biology, biotechnology etc.)
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