Faculty of Engineering

Nanotechnology engineering is a multi-disciplinary engineering field which simultaneously draws from and benefits areas such as materials science and engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology. Indeed, it is all about generating new solutions based on atomic- and molecular-scale manipulations.

Nanotechnology commonly refers to the fabrication, study, and manipulation of structures having sizes in the range from one to one hundred nanometers (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter). This length scale bridges the important gap between atoms and molecules (which are less than one nanometer in size) and bulk materials; requiring fundamental chemistry and quantum physics. To develop this new cluster of technologies, there is an acute need for highly trained personnel with good understanding of the natural laws that govern the workings of not only atoms and molecules but also natural or manufactured nanoscopic and mesoscopic structures and systems (e.g., clusters, fullerenes, nanotubes, macromolecules, nanorobots, and nanosystems).

The field is loosely divided into four subareas: micro and nanoinstruments, nanoelectronics, nano-biosystems, and nanoengineered materials. The first addresses some of the most far-reaching yet practical applications of miniature instruments for measuring atoms or molecules in chemical, clinical, or biochemical analysis; in biotechnology for agent detection; and environmental analysis. The second category, nanoelectronics, concerns the development of systems and materials required for the electronics industry to go beyond current technological limits – producing even finer detail than features in a high-performance microprocessor chip. Also in this category is a new generation of electronics based on plastics, which is expected to create new markets with applications ranging from smart cards to tube-like computers. The third class, nano-biosystems, can be described as molecular manipulation of biomaterials and the associated miniaturization of analytical devices such as DNA, peptide, protein, and cell chips. The last subarea, nanoengineered materials, looks at several classes of advanced materials including nanocrystalline materials and nanopowders used in electronics and photonics applications, as catalysts in automobiles, in the food and pharmaceutical industries, as membranes for fuel cells, and for industrial-scale polymers.

The Nanotechnology Engineering honours degree program is designed to provide a practical education in key areas of nanotechnology, including the fundamental chemistry, physics, and engineering of nanostructures or nanosystems as well as the theories and techniques used to model, design, fabricate, or characterize these technologies. Emphasis is placed on training with modern instrumentation techniques as used in the research and development of these emerging technologies. The University awards a Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) degree in Nanotechnology Engineering to students who successfully meet all program requirements.

This engineering program is a collaborative effort among three departments: the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, and the Chemistry Department in the Faculty of Science.