Special Topic: Electromechanics for Nano-Engineering
ECE 692, Section 016, Fall 2006
Class schedule:
4:40 - 6:10pm Mondays and Wednesdays, Ferris Hall 511
Instructor:
Dr. J. Wu, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 420 Ferris Hall
jaynewu@utk.edu, 865-974-5494
Reference books:
Nanoelectromechanics in Engineering and Biology, Michael Hughes, CRC Press.
AC Electrokinetics: colloids and nanoparticles, Hywel Morgan and Nicolas Green,
Research Studies Press.
Technical papers assigned in class
Course Description
The course is concerned with the present and future technology of manipulation in
nanoscale engineering, physics, and biochemistry.
The approachs to impart force to nanometer-scale objects with high precision include the
manipulation of atoms on a dry surface using atomic force microscope tips or the
manipulation of molecules in suspension using a focused laser.
However, as the size of the object being manipulated is decreased, so electrical
interactions become the one of the dominant forces acting on the object. Electrokinetics
investigates particle manipulation by controlling the electrostatic interactions between an
object and its environment.
The purpose of this course is to give a comprehensive description of how electrokinetic
techniques can be used to manipulate particles on the nanometer scale. A nanoparticle
suspended in fluid behaves in much the same way whether it is nanotube to be integrated
into a nano-transistor or a fragment of DNA. Therefore the subject offers benefits cross
disciplines from biophysics to electronic engineers.
Manipulation and assembly of micro- and nano- scale substances, such as colloidal
particles, cells, and molecules play a crucial role in fabricating an emerging paradigm of
materials / devices, which is so-called bottom-up nanotechnology. Precise placement of
particles at nanoscale has been envisioned to be the strategy to construct functional
nanoscale devices, in order to overcome fundamental and throughput limitations of
lithography-based fabrication.
Force is exerted onto nanosize particles with fluid as medium and nanofluids are
manipulated through flow patterns using micro-scale fluidic devices, thus bridging the
gap between micro and nano engineering.
Nanofluid dynamics is being used both as an investigation tool to study the physics of the
interaction between electric fields and nanoparticles, and as a manipulation tool for
nanoparticle assembly, concentration, etc.
The course will cover a series of effects caused by the interactions of electric fields and
the dipoles induced in particles exposed to the fields, which result in the induced motion
of the particles. The topics include dielectrophoresis, electro-osmosis, electrothermal
flow etc, and most recent advancement in the field.