Home > Undergraduate Students > Electrical Engineering > Electrical Engineering Nanoengineering Option Overview

 Print this page

This option provides an introduction to the principles of electronics, electromagnetics and photonics as they apply at the nanoscale level. By selecting this option, students will learn about the processes involved in the fabrication of nanoscale structures and become familiar with the computer aided design (CAD) tools necessary for analyzing phenomena at these very high levels of miniaturization.

The Option retains most of the core elements of the traditional Electrical Engineering Program and contains a number of new offerings in the form of technical electives. Changes from the Traditional Electrical Engineering Program occur only after second year.

New Courses in the Core of the Option:

EE 323 Analytical Methods of Electrical Engineering (3-1s-0): Introduction to analytical solutions of partial differential equations, eigenfunctions and eigenvalue problems, special functions in cylindrical and spherical coordinates, Green's functions, and transform methods. This course provides the necessary mathematical foundation for understanding and analyzing important physical phenomena encountered at the micro and nanoscales. Examples will be drawn from relevant engineering areas such as electromagnetics, quantum mechanics, solid-state physics, photonics, thermal transport, and microelectromechanical systems.

EE 456 Introduction to Nanoelectronics (3-0-0): Fundamental concepts related to current flow in nanoelectronic devices. Energy level diagram and the Fermi function. Single-energy-level model for current flow and associated effects, such as the quantum of conductance, Coulomb blockade, and single electron charging. The Schroedinger equation and quantum mechanics for applications in nanoelectronics. Matrix-equation approach for numerical band structure calculations of transistor channel materials. k-space, Brillouin zones, and density of states. Subbands for quantum wells, wires, dots, and carbon nanotubes. Current flow in nanowires and ballistic nanotransistors, including minimum possible channel resistance, quantum capacitance, and the transistor equivalent circuit under ballistic operation.

EE 457 Microfabrication and Devices (3-0-2): Microfabrication and Devices (3-0-2). Microfabrication processes for CMOS, bipolar, MEMS, and microfluidics devices. Laboratory safety. Deposition processes of oxidation, evaporation and sputtering. Lithography, wet and dry etch, and device characterization.

EE 471 Photonics I (3-0-3/2) Electromagnetic wave propagation at optical frequencies and approximations. Thermal and luminescent light sources, optical beams. Ray and Gaussian optics and simple optical components. Wave optics, polarization, interference, interferometric devices. Light-matter interactions. Optics of crystals; polarizers and waveplates. Photodetectors. Photonic engineering applications.

New Technical Electives:

EE 445 Computation for Nanoengineering (3-0-0): Introduction to advanced numerical methods such as finite-difference, finite-element and spectral-domain techniques for solving partial differential equations. Students will learn to perform simulations of nanoscale systems involving multiphysics or coupled differential equations (involving electron and thermal transport phenomena, electrodynamics, MEMS, and process simulation), and apply graphical methods for 3D visualization of simulation data. Realistic examples will be drawn from applied areas of nanoengineering to demonstrate the use of computational methods as nanotools for understanding and gaining insights into complex physical phenomena, as well as for designing and simulating nanoscale devices and systems.

EE 454 Nanoelectronics (3-0-0): Review of E-k diagrams, and associated particle motion, effective mass, and density of states. Carrier scattering and Fermi's Golden Rule. Semiclassical electron transport, the distribution function, and the Boltzmann transport equation. Derivation of the classical drift-diffusion equations for macroscopic device analysis from the Boltzmann equation. Semiconductor fundamentals important for modern transistors, such as device band diagrams, doping, mobility, and diffusivity. Applications most relevant to modern devices will be covered, including a quantitative treatment of barrier concepts such as contact potential, the depletion approximation, and electron tunneling, as well as MOS electrostatics, band diagrams, and the derivation of the MOSFET operating equations in the long- and short-channel limits.

EE 477 Nanophotonics (3-0-0): Fundamental aspects of light-matter interactions at the nanoscale such as photonic bandgaps, metamaterials, subwavelength photon localization and confinement, surface plasmon resonance, quantum wells and quantum dots. Students will be exposed to new and emerging nanophotonic devices and technologies such as photonic crystals, nanoplasmonics, near-field optical nanoprobes, optical antennas and nanotags.