Curricular Material Based on Nano-Structures

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Curricular Material Based on Nano-Structures
Fran Mateycik
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Goal Create Demonstrations that may be helpful
  for the ScIT courses and Physics Outreach.

Advisor Dr. G.-C. Wang
Advisor Dr. DJ Wagner

• Goal Create Nanosprings demonstrations that can
  be used for Physics Outreach.

• Goal Create Nanotechnology demonstrations that
  may be helpful for the Science of Information
  Technology Course.

These demonstrations were created to expand the
general understanding of one particular section
of the vast nanotechnology field. These
animations target high school and accelerated
middle school students and are designed to both
stand on their own or be used as guides for
classroom instruction. Since I am a
coordinator for many Physics Outreach Events,
these animations, along with the knowledge of how
to create more Macromedia Director animations,
will be very helpful in the next couple years as
physics outreach for the department grows. Also,
since they are published online, others will be
able to access these files and learn more about
Nanosprings.
Science of Information Technology (ScIT) is a
novel course introducing students to the physics
underlying information technologies.

• ScIT is unique because
• It is an upper-level physics course with no
  prerequisites
• It combines discussions of fundamental physical
  principles with information system applications
  that interest students
• It brings world-class researchers with several
  different specialties into a classroom to talk
  about the current state of research
• It attracts students from diverse concentrations,
  with performance in the course essentially
  independent of physics background.

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The Science of Information Technology course
material is being heavily revised and the NSF has
funded a project to develop a complete online
textbook. With this new textbook, along with
this very unique course, educators envision a
growth in educated technology users in our coming
generations. My primary responsibility for the
first five weeks of REU were to create material
for the nanotechnology portion of the online text.
Macromedia Director Program
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The course material has a very broad range of
physics topics including these four units
Information Transfer, Information Storage,
Information Processing, and Future Information
Technologies. I worked with Dr. Wagner more
specifically to add material to computing
implications of nanotechnology section. My
projects included animating and illustrating the
mechanical properties of nanotubes and
interconnects, while verifying sources and facts
within the text created a year previous. I also
helped develop animations based on our current
computing technology. Energy bands, electron and
hole movement, semiconductors, and doping are all
as important as nanotechnology for our future
technology. They are also basic physics concepts
that could apply to possible future uses of
nano-structures. These few pictures illustrate
some examples of work done.

• To the side, we can see five screen shots of the
  Nanosprings animation.
• The first screen shot is of the menu where we can
  see a listing of the topics covered (the numbers
  following the topics listed below represent the
  screen shot number.)
• Hookes Law 2,
• Oblique angle Deposition using Electron beam
  evaporation 3,
• Glancing Angle Deposition using Thermal
  evaporation 4,
• and nanospring mechanics 5
• which just happens to be very similar to that of
  Macroscopic Springs.

Graphite
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Nanocar
Physics Education Research Conference
I am very close to finishing the instructional
movies based on Nanosprings. The section that
must be finalized is based on current research
done here at RPI. Dr. Singh along with several
other graduate students in Dr. Wangs group are
studying the compression of Cobalt covered
nanosprings due to an attractive magnetic force
between the coils after passing a DC current
through a Platinum coated conducting AFM tip.
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Interconnect
The annual meeting for PERC was held in Madison
Wisconsin. Dr. Wagner, along with JJ Rivera and
I went to the Conference for the presentation of
our findings related to the cognitive model of
optical fibers and Total Internal Reflection.
The assessment of student preconceptions and
mental models in physics seems to be a great way
to understand and better fulfill a students
educational needs. With the help of Dr. Sybillyn
Jennings (Psychologist at Russell Sage College)
and undergraduate assistants (including me ?),
Dr. Wagner has produced several outlines based on
the progression of cognition within the students
mind for optical fibers and Total internal
reflection. These outlines are very helpful for
future creation of curricular materials because
they allow us to change preconceptions and allow
related physics subjects to connect more easily
in the students mind.
The concept is based on simple electromagnetic
and mechanical properties that may be useful in
the future.
N-Type
P-Type
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Since the tip of the cantilever of the AFM is
covered in Pt, one can easily pass current into
the tip and into the Co covered springs. Since
current passes through the spring like a wire, a
magnetic field in the coil is generated. The
current flowing in the coils are in the same
direction and therefore an attractive force
between neighboring turns of the spring will be
created. The attractive forces compress the
spring and the tip of the cantilever breaks
contact with the top of the spring, therefore
breaking the circuit. Since the magnetic force
is induced by the flow of current, the magnetic
force will disappear with the break in the
circuit and the spring will return to its
original state. Once it returns to such a
length, the tip will touch to top of the spring
once again and reconnect the circuit, starting
another cycle of compression and restoration.
Posterboard Analogy (Energy Bands)