Published in June, 2015 by Cambridge University Press, Nanostructures and Nanotechnology is a senior undergraduate/first-year graduate level textbook meant to provide a comprehensive introduction to nanoscale science and its applications. The book is intended for students from diverse backgrounds, including physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, and materials science. It's meant to be pedagogical (not a collection of review articles) and foundational (focusing on the underlying physical principles, rather than immediately-out-of-date latest results).

Part I begins with an overview of conventional solid state physics and a discussion of the physical consequences of structuring matter on the nanoscale. A variety of conventional materials are introduced, as are techniques for fabricating and characterizing structures on the nanoscale.

Part II examines several specific subject areas, each with a focused introduction to the underlying physical principals, a discussion of current technological approaches, and a look at how the ability to control and structure materials at the nanoscale is relevant to future progress. The topics considered are nanoelectronics, magnetism and magnetic materials, photonics, micro/nanomechanical systems, micro/nanofluidics, and nanobio. The book concludes with a brief discussion of nanoscience and nanotechnology as applied to the problem of energy, and future prospects for this amazingly broad discipline.

The book has many color figures, chapter summaries, suggested reading, would-be homework exercises, and an extensive bibliography.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

Here is a review of the text in the MRS Bulletin.

Additions and errata

  • Eq. 2.37 is missing a factor of \(2 \pi\), and should read \( \mathbf{b}_{i}\cdot \mathbf{a}_{j} = 2 \pi \delta_{ij}.\)
  • The first line of Eq. 2.47 is missing a closing parentheses, and should read \( u_{\mathbf{k}}(\mathbf{r}+\mathbf{R}) = \exp(-i \mathbf{k} \cdot (\mathbf{r}+\mathbf{R}))\psi(\mathbf{r}+\mathbf{R}) \).
  • In problem 6.11, the statement is supposed to read \( Ec \sim 5 k_{\mathrm{B}}T\), not 0.02.
  • Chapter epigraphs

    Because of the vagaries of British copyright law and the fact that Cambridge is a UK publisher, I was not allowed to use all of the little epigraphs (beginning-of-chapter quotes) that I'd wanted to include. Here they are.

    • "Heyyyyyyyy! Let's get small!"  - Steve Martin (see here)

    • "I would like to describe a field, in which little has been done, but in which an enormous amount can be done in principle. This field is not quite the same as the others in that it will not tell us much of fundamental physics (in the sense of, 'What are the strange particles?') but it is more like solid-state physics in the sense that it might tell us much of great interest about the strange phenomena that occur in complex situations. Furthermore, a point that is most important is that it would have an enormous number of technical applications. What I want to talk about is the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale."  - Richard Feynman, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" lecture, Engineering and Science 23, 22 (1960)

    • "More is different." - Phil Anderson, Science 177, 393 (1972).

    • "Solid state I don't like, even though I started it." - Wolfgang Pauli, from AIP's oral history project

    • "How do we write small? ... We have no standard technique to do this now, but let me argue that it's not as difficult as it first appears to be." - Richard Feynman, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" lecture, Engineering and Science 23, 22 (1960)

    • "God made solids, but surfaces were the work of the devil." - Wolfgang Pauli,  quoted in Growth, Dissolution, and Pattern Formation in Geosystems (1999) by Bjorn Jamtveit and Paul Meakin, p. 291.

    • "The importance of the infinitely little is incalculable." - Dr. Joseph Bell, 1892 introduction to Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet

    • "Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators." - Dave Barry, 1997

    • "If I were creating the world I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!" - Evil, Time Bandits

    • "Make big money!  Be a Quantum Mechanic!" - Tom Weller, Science Made Stupid (1985). 

    • "I am an old man now, and when I die and go to Heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightement. One is quantum electrodynamics and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am rather more optimistic." - Horace Lamb, 1932 address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as cited in Eames, I., and J. B. Flor. "New developments in understanding interfacial processes in turbulent flows." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 369.1937 (2011): 702-705

    • "Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself." - Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1988), p. 61

    • "Be a scientist, save the world!" - Rick Smalley