Bringing Nanotechnology to the Classroom:
Capturing High School Students’ and Teachers’
Nanotech Interest
Chang Yeol Ryu, NSEC, RPI, Troy, NY 12180
Tim
Eric
Chris
Cindy Mike
Aditya
6-week summer
program
Sherra
Jesse
Motivation:
Design teaching modules (lecture and laboratory)
for enabling high school teachers to attract students
into nanoscale science and technology
AFM
SEM
CD, DVD, hard-disk, floppy, zip and minidisk
Nanoporous silica and AAO
100 nm pore
Lecture modules: To characterize man-made nanoscale
structures in commercial or research grade materials
using state-of-art microscopy (AFM and SEM) at RPI
Topography TM AFM
Zip disk
20µm
10µm
PowerPoint Slides for lecturing
Virtual AFM modules
Mica
Floppy
Magnetic Force AFM
Zip disk
DVD-RW (optical media)
CD-R (optical media)
30 nm pore
2µ m
5 µm
Zip disk
1 µm
Floppy disk
Hard Disk
Mini Disk
10µm
10µm
10µm
AFM tip
10µm
DVD
CD
Nanoporous silica
Specification
Track Pitch
Min. Pitch Length
CD
1600 nm
860 nm
Floppy: tracks (brown)
& sectors (yellow).
DVD
740 nm
400 nm
Nanoporous AAO
Hard disk
The schematic diagrams above were obtained from http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Hydrophilic vs. Hydrophobic concept!
water
Silver
water
SAM
Silver
Silver
glass
“Silver mirror” experiment
Laboratory modules: Experiments that are
compatible with high school laboratory
courses using simple glass-wares & chemistry
glass
After alkyl thiol SAM treatment
Acknowledgement
NSF, NSF-NSEC, RPI
Collaborators
HS laboratory modules developed
• Self assembled monolayer (extension of Si mirror exp.)
• Ni nanowire using electroplating and nanoporous filter
• Dr. Hoichang Yang (NSEC Staff, RPI),
• Professor Lee Park (Williams College, NSEC outreach partner)