Incorporating Nanotechnology into Undergraduate Education

A new course in nanoscale mechanics for engineering students was recently taught at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Mechanics enters a new regime at the nanoscale, where the effects of surfaces, interfaces, defects, material property variations, and quantum effects are accentuated. This course provided an introduction to nanoscale engineering with a direct focus on the critical role that mechanics needs to play in this developing area. The limits of continuum mechanics were presented, as well as newly developed mechanics theories and experiments tailored to describe microand nano-scale phenomena. Numerous demonstrations and experiments were used throughout the course, including synthesis and fabrication techniques for creating nanostructured materials, bubble raft models to demonstrate size-scale effects in thin film structures, a hands-on laboratory utilizing the atomic force microscope, and a laboratory construction of a nanofilter devices using microfluidic technology.