Developing a lab course in nanotechnology for undergraduate engineering students

Nanotechnology is an area of strategic importance for future industry. Department of Electrical Engineering in collaboration with the Department of Physics has developed a new Interdisciplinary Nanoelectronics Laboratory for the Engineering/Science Undergraduate Curriculum at the University at Buffalo (UB). This is one of the very first and unique teaching laboratories in the area of nanoelectronics in the country for second and third year undergraduate students. Nine laboratory experiments as well as the manuals for these laboratory experiments have been developed. The list of the laboratory experiments includes: Propagation of Errors; Introduction to Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM); Study of the Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) Surface Using STM; Introduction to Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM); Study of the Morpho Butterfly Wing Structure Using AFM; Diffraction of Electrons from Graphite; Diffraction of Light by a Double Slit - One Photon at a Time; Optical Absorption by CdSe Nanocrystals; Photoluminescence from InP Quantum Dots (QDs). This unique Laboratory was already used by local high school students who visited it during special events organized by the University. During the Summer 2007 semester, the laboratory has been used to train Science teachers from local schools. Nineteen undergraduate students were enrolled in lab course in the Fall 2007 semester. This paper reports a study on the effectiveness of the above newly developed nanotechnology laboratory course.