Nano-Engineering in Science and Technology

The following sections are included:

• Preface

• Contents

Today, nanotechnology is still at the beginning, and only rudimentary nanostructures can be created with some control. The science of atoms and simple molecules, on one end, and the science of matter from microstructures to larger scales, on the other, are generally established. The remaining size-related challenge is at the nanometer scale — roughly between 1 and 100 molecular diameters — where the fundamental properties of materials are determined and can be engineered. A revolution has been occurring in science and technology, based on the developed ability to measure, manipulate and organize matter on this scale. Recently discovered organized structures of matter (such as carbon nano-tubes, molecular motors, DNA-based assemblies, quantum dots, and molecular switches) and new phenomena (such as giant magnetoresistance, coulomb blockade, and those caused by size confinement) are scientific breakthroughs that merely hint at possible future developments [Roco, Sims, 2001] …

The following sections are included:

• Quantum Mechanical Treatment of the Many-Particle Problem

• Potential Energy Surface

• Pair Potential Approximation

• Advantages and Limitations of the Pair Potential Approximation

• Phenomenological Potentials

• Pseudo Potentials

• Many-Body Potentials

The following sections are included:

• Models for Molecular Dynamics Calculations

• Visualization Techniques

• Solution of the Equations of Motion

• Efficient Force Field Computation

• Implementation

The following sections are included:

• Thermal Stability

• Basic Material Properties

• Wear at the Nanometer Level

• Mean Values and Correlation Functions

The following sections are included:

• Functional Nanostructures

• Nano-Machines

• Nano-Clusters

• Stimulated Nano-Cluster Transformations

• Analogy Considerations

• The Bifurcation Phenomenon at the Nanometer Scale

• Analogies to Biology

• Final Considerations

The following sections are included:

• Bibliography

• Index