Graduating class of students of the nanotechnology technician training

1. Aligned Si nanocrystal memory on carbon nanotubesJianlin Liu, University of California-Riverside, DMR 0807232 Parallel aligned carbon nanotubes covered with Al2O3 are used as a template for Si nanocrystal alignment. The nanocrystals have been shown to align to the top of the ridges made by the carbon nanotubes. The carbon nanotubes also serve as the FET channel for the use in non-volatile memory. The advantages of this structure are scalability, large retention compared with other carbon nanotube memories, and compatibility with traditional interconnect processes. The aligned nanocrystals are better over than randomly grown nanocrystals in terns of having less cross talk. Therefore, a single cell of this memory could be potentially fabricated with only 1nanocrystal in the channel, making the channel length as small as 5 nm. a b c Fig. 1 (a)AFM image of nanocrystals on Al2O3 covered carbon nanotubes. (b)Device structure of nanocrystal/carbon nanotube memory device. (c) Drain current change over time of the memory device. Total charge retention is extrapolated to be 4.2×104s.

2. Contribution to future nanotechnology workforce: Nanotechnology technician trainingJianlin Liu, University of California-Riverside, DMR 0807232 An ongoing effort by the San Bernardino Community College District and UC Riverside is to train the local workforce in the skills required to enter the field of nanotechnology. The course teaching duties fell to the faculty of UCR and the graduate student Frederick Gertz for the second year of this program. The courses taught were introductory to electronic and optoelectronic devices as well as fabrication and characterization techniques. The total course load is 90 hours over a period of about 8 weeks. So far an excess of 250 trainees have completed this set of courses. Graduating class of students of the nanotechnology technician training