Porous Silicon as an Educational Vehicle for Introducing Nanotechnology and Interdisciplinary Materials Science
✍ Scribed by Parkhutik, V.P. ;Canham, L.T.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 237 KB
- Volume
- 182
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0031-8965
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This paper describes why the authors view porous silicon (PSi) as an excellent vehicle for introducing university students to both basic and advanced materials science and engineering. Its ease of fabrication offers unique possibilities for university teachers to demonstrate nanoscale phenomena. Mechanical, physical, chemical and biological properties of PSi are amenable to laboratory tests employing a variety of modern but fairly standard characterization techniques. Its radically different behaviour from bulk silicon, but compatibility with VLSI technology, can be used to give students a taste of not only materials issues in electronics, but also optoelectronics, micro-optics, sensors, solar cells, micromachining, acoustics, medicine, biotechnology and even astrophysics! By way of an example, we analyze practical experience accumulated at the Technical University of Valencia during four years of teaching courses related with materials science. The introduction of PSi research into the curriculum has led to good synergy between theoretical aspects and practical studies, and has also improved personalization of studies where each student realizes their own nanostructure, and then has a choice of which material property and application area to delve into. Some prospects for future educational developments are then suggested.