Development of a Course in Nanotechnology
Thomas Wong
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Illinois Institute of Technology
Abstract
The ability to precisely control the structure of matter at the atomic and molecular levels and the utilization of novel phenomena unique to the nanometer length scale are expected to be the driving force for new frontiers of research in science and technology. With the rapid progress in research initiatives and accumulation of novel results bearing technological significance, the field of nanotechnology is experiencing phenomenal growth. As quite a few annual conferences are organized and an ever increasing number of professional journals devoted to various subjects in the field are published, nanoscience and nanotechnology are finding their place in the curriculum. After attending a workshop on research and education in nanotechnology in 2003, a seminar course on nanotechnology for graduate students was organized, based on seminal articles published in journals as well as scientific publications for the general public. With the availability of books on nanotechnology with a comprehensive coverage of the topics, the seminar course has evolved to a regular course with homework exercises and term paper requirement. An account of the challenges of conveying the concepts to an audience with electrical engineering background and the choice of topics for the course content will be presented.
Biography
Thomas Wong received the B.Sc. degree from the University of Hong Kong, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University, all degrees being in electrical engineering. He joined the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 1981 and is currently a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). He has conducted research in microwave measurement, charge transport in solids, propagation effects in devices and integrated circuits, transient electromagnetics, nonlinear device measurements, and broadband wireless communication systems. He served as the ECE graduate program director at IIT from 1987 to 1995, the chair of the Faculty Council in the 1998 academic year, and the chairman of the ECE Department from 2001 to 2005. He is a former chair of the IEEE AP-MTT Joint Chapter in Chicago and is currently serving on the organizing committee of the XXIX General Assembly of URSI to be held in Chicago in 2008. He is the author of Fundamentals of Distributed Amplification (Artech, 1993) and coauthor of Electromagnetic Fields and Waves (Higher Education Press 2006, in press) and has several patents in the areas of microwave electronics and wireless system design.