1. Nanoscience 15 lectures + 3 tutorials
4007 SS Physics
Dr Pete Nellist (coordinator)
13 lectures + 2 tutorials
Prof Suzi Jarvis Biological nanomaterials
1 lecture
Prof John Boland Mechanical properties
1 lecture
Books:
Introduction to Nanotechnology, Poole and Owens (Wiley)
Quantum Mechanics, McMurry
Quantum Semiconductor Structures, Weisbuch and Vintner (AP)

2. Timetable (subject to change)
Lectures are at:
Tuesdays 5 pm in the Schroedinger Lecture Theatre.
Wednesdays 4 pm in the SNIAM Physics Lecture Theatre.
Date Lecturer
25 January No lecture
All tutorials will be in the Trinity term.

3. Nellist Lectures
Combination of figures on Powerpoint and handwritten notes.
Copies of handwritten notes will not be provided, so keep notes during the lectures.
Powerpoint presentations can be found at:

4. Why nanoscience?
Nanoscience (nanotechnology) is usually defined as being based on structures 1-100nm in dimension.
Typical interatomic spacing ~0.2nm, so can consist of a few tens to hundreds of millions of atoms.
Feynman talk “There’s plenty of room at the bottom” (
He is mainly discussing minaturization
Also can exploit quantum effects.

5. Moore’s law
Gordon Moore
1929-
Moore’s law: The number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years.
Transistor dimensions are now as small as 65 nm, so this is nanotechnology rather than microtechnology.

6. Single atoms These are Fe atoms positioned on a Cu surface.
They were positioned using a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM).
Don Eigler at IBM.

7. Metal nanoparticles
2 nm

8. Metal nanoparticles and single atoms

9. Multiply twinned particles
Often nanoparticles are multiply twinned.
This is done to minimise the surface energy.

10. Catalysts
At the nanoscale, physics and chemistry converge

11. The Lycurgus Cup
The Lycurgus Cup is unusual in that the reflected light colour (green) is different to the colour of transmitted light (red).
The reason is that the glass contains 70 nm diameter nanoparticles of gold.
Nanoparticles of gold can appear to have different colours depending on their size.

12. Buckminsterfullerene
A carbon-60 molecule.
C60 is also known as Buckminsterfullerene (buckyballs).
Other similar molecules (such as C70) exist.
When doped with alkali metals, the resulting structure can act as a superconductor.

13. Carbon nanotubes Discovered by Sumio Iijima in 1991.
S. Iijima, Nature 354 (1991) 56.
They can be metallic or semiconducting.
They are mechanically extremely strong.
Use for composites?

14. Inorganic nanowire ropes
These are ropes about 10 nm in diameter.
They are made from individual chain molecules of Mo6S4.5I4.5.
The individual chains can be seen in the image.
These ropes are thought to have metallic properties.

15. Quantum Dots Show zero-dimensional quantum effects.
Many optical applications
quantum lasers
light emitting diodes
single electron transistors

16. Quantum wells Also optically important Can also have quantum wires
For example infra-red detectors
Can also have quantum wires

17. Biological Macromolecules
Five Bakers Dancing!

18. Dioxy Ribonucleic Acid
DNA
Dioxy Ribonucleic Acid
 Is sometime made synthetically for use as a nanostructure.

19. Spintronics
Hard disk read/write head.