DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY

SRM INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

18PYB103J –Semiconduuctor Physics

MODULE 5
S–2
Introduction to Low dimensional systems
Quantum Well, Wire, Dot
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18PYB101J Module-V Lecture-2
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
What is happening at a very, very small length scale?

18PYB101J Module-V Lecture-2

18PYB101J Module-V Lecture-2
 What is Nano ?

18PYB101J Module-V Lecture-2

 Actual physical dimensions relevant to
Nanosystem

Nanoscience

0.1nm 1nm 10nm 100nm 1μm 10 μm

Size and shape dependent

properties

Nanometer scale : The length scale where corresponding

property is size & shape dependent.
 Surface to Volume Ratio
Increases
As surface to volume ratio increases

• A greater amount of a substance

comes in contact with surrounding
material.

• This results in better catalysts, since

a greater proportion of the material is
exposed for potential reaction.
 What’s interesting about the nanoscale?

•Nano sized particles exhibit different properties than larger

particles of the same substance.

•Nano sized particle exhibit size & shape dependent

properties.

How do properties
change at the
Nanoscale ?
 Optical Properties: Colour of Gold
• Bulk gold
appears yellow in colour.

• Nano sized gold

appears red in colour.
The particles are so small that electrons are not free to
move about as in bulk gold Because this movement is
restricted, the particles react differently with light.

12 nanometer gold clusters of

particles look red.

Sources:
http://www.sharps-jewellers.co.uk/rings/images/bien-hccncsq5.jpg
http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT7/Abstracts/Levi/
 Nanoscience: Nanometer scale
science
• A part of science that studies small stuff

So, what is Nano science ?

• It is not only Biology.
• It is not only Physics .
• It is not only Chemistry.
• It is all sciences that work with the very small.

Nanoscience is not physics, chemistry,

engineering or biology. It is all of them.
S.M. Lindsay, Introduction to Nanoscience,
Oxford University Press (2009).
 Interdisciplinary
• Physicists: physical forces between the individual atoms composing
them – quantum effects
Chemists : The interaction of different molecules is governed by
chemical forces.
Biologists : creation of small devices (encoding informations in
DNA to perform multitasks
Computer Scientists : Steady miniaturization : - Moore’s Law and its
corollaries, the phenomena whereby the price performance, speed,
and capacity of almost every component of the computer.
Electrical Engineers : a steady supply of power. A control of electric
signals is also vital to transistor switches and memory storage.
Mechanical Engineers: nanolevel issues such as load bearing,
wear, material fatigue, and lubrication
What makes the nanoscale special?
1) High density of structures is possible with small size.
2) Physical and chemical properties can be different at the nano-scale (e.g.
electronic, optical, mechanical, thermal, chemical).
3) The physical behavior of material can be different in the nano-regime
because of the different ways physical properties scale with dimension
(e.g. area vs. volume).

Prof. Richard Feynman

“There’s plenty of room at the bottom”
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 Dr. Richard P. Feynman
• “Why cannot we write the entire 24
volumes of the Encyclopedia
Britannica on the head of a pin?”

Dr. Richard Feynman, one of

America’s most notable physicists,
1918-1988.

Figure 1.11: Richard Feynman.

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 Physical/chemical properties can change as
we approach the nano-scale

Melting point of gold particles Fluorescence of semiconductor

nanocrystals

Decreasing crystal size

M. Bawendi, MIT: web.mit.edu/chemistry/nanocluster

K. J. Klabunde, 2001 Evident, Inc.: www.evidenttech.com

By controlling nano-scale (1) composition, (2) size, and (3) shape, we can
create new materials with new properties 🡪 New technologies

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The Lycurgus Cup
A Roman
Nanotechnology
Reflected, transmitted

The Lycurgus Cup represents one of the outstanding achievements of the

ancient glass industry. This late Roman cut glass vessel is extraordinary in
several respects, firstly in
the method of fabrication and the exceptional workmanship involved and
secondly in terms of the unusual optical effects displayed by the glass.
Chemical analysis showed the glass to be of the soda-lime-silica type,
similar to most other Roman glass (and to modern window and bottle glass)
containing in addition about 0.5% of manganese. In addition, a number of
trace elements including silver and gold make up the final 1%. It was
further suggested that the unique optical characteristics of the glass might
be connected with the presence in the glass of colloidal gold
* 16
• The semiconductors like PbS, GaAs, CdS etc., can be
synthesized in the nanometer level and they are called as
semiconductor quantum dots. Their properties like band gap,
luminescence etc., always differs from their bulk counterpart.

The quantum structures are useful in the fabrication of high

efficiency solar cells, infrared detectors, quantum dot lasers etc.

• Properties of Nanomaterials
Unique properties
They have very high magneto resistance
They have lower melting point, high solid state phase
transition pressure, lower Debye temperature and high self
diffusion coefficient
They have high catalytic activity and lower ferroelectric
phase transition temperature

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Variation of physical properties with size
It is well established that mechanical, electrical, optical,
chemical, semi conducting and magnetic properties of a material
depend strongly upon the size and the arrangement of the
constituent clusters or grains.

(i) Electron affinities and chemical properties

Variation in electronic properties with size occurs only when
there is a variation in inter particle spacing and geometry. As the size
is reduced from the bulk, the electronic bands in metals become
narrower and the delocalized electronic states are transformed to
more localized molecular bonds.

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 • Variation in electronic properties with size occurs only when there is a
variation in inter particle spacing and geometry.
As the size is reduced from the bulk, the electronic bands in metals
become narrower and the delocalized electronic states are transformed
to more localized molecular bonds.

• Fig shows the ionization potential and

reactivity of Fen clusters as a function of
size.
• The ionization potential are higher at
smaller sizes than at the bulk work
function .
• The large surface – to – volume ratio and
the variation in geometry and electronic
structure have a strong effect on catalysis
properties.

Ionization potential and reactivity of Fen clusters as a function of size

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(ii) Magnetic properties
• Nano particles of magnetic and even non magnetic solids exhibit a totally
new class of magnetic properties.
• Table gives an account of magnetic behavior of very small particles of
various metals.
• Ferro magnetic and anti ferromagnetic multilayers have been found to
exhibit Giant Magneto Resistance (GMR).
• Small particles differ from the bulk in that these atoms will have lower
co-ordination number.
• From the Fig, it is inferred that the small particles are more
magnetic than the bulk material

Metal Bulk Cluster

Na, K Paramagnetic Ferromagnetic
Fe, Co, Ni Ferro magnetic Super paramagnetic
Gd, Tb Ferromagnetic Super paramagnetic
Rh Paramagnetic Ferromagnetic

Table Magnetism in bulk and in nano particles

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 Change in bulk magnetic moment Melting point of gold as a function of
versus co- ordination number grain size

(iii) Mechanical behaviour

From the Fig. it is evident that the melting point reduction is
not really significant until the particle size is less than about 10nm.

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• Nanophase metals with their
exceptionally small grain size are
found to be exceptionally strong.
• It is because clusters and grains in
nanophase material are mostly free
from dislocations.
• The variation of hardness with
diameter of copper nano crystals is
shown in Fig.
• From the Fig. it is revealed that when
the grains size was 50nm in diameter, Fig. Strength of nanophase copper as a
function of grain size
the copper was twice as hard as
usual.
• Thus the material in nano phase has
very high strength and super
hardness.
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• The basic principles of nanotechnology is positional control.
• At the macroscopic scale, it is easy to hold parts in our hands and
assemble them by properly positioning them with respect to each
other.
• At the molecular scale, the idea of holding and positioning molecules
is new and almost shocking.
• It is possible to continue the revolution in computer hardware right
down to molecular gates and wires -- something that today's
lithographic methods (used to make computer chips) could never
hope to do.
• One can inexpensively make very strong and very light materials:
shatterproof diamond in precisely the shapes we want, by the ton,
and over fifty times lighter than steel of the same strength.
• It is possible to make surgical instruments with high precision and
deftness that one could operate on the cells and even molecules
from which we are made - something well beyond today's medical
technology
• Nanotechnology makes almost every manufactured product faster,
lighter, stronger, smarter, safer and cleaner.
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• The general synthetic path
ways to synthesize
nanomaterials are
top-down and bottom-up
approach

• In the later method,

chemistry plays a unique
role in assembling and
building up nanometric
units from smaller ones.
Electrical Measurements:
Measurements of electrical quantities, such as
voltage, impedance, current, AC frequency and phase,
power, electric energy, electric charge, inductance,
and capacitance
Electrical measurements are among the most widely
performed types of measurement.
The resistivity measurements can be studied by
different techniques

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 Classification

• Classification is based on the number of dimensions,

which are
• not confined to the nanoscale range (<100 nm).
• (1) zero-dimensional (0-D), (spherical)
• (2) one-dimensional (1-D), (nanorods, nanowires,
nanofibers, nanotubes)
• (3) two-dimensional (2-D), and (flat membranes,
nanosheets, nanodisc)
• (4) three-dimensional (3-D). (nanodots)
 Progressive generation of nanostructures
Well : - e-s move only in 2D
Wire : - only in 1 D
Dots: - confined in all directions, 3D
movement

curvilin
ear
rectang
ular
Nanomaterials:
Nanomaterials or nanophase materials are
the materials which are made of grains that are
about 100nm in diameter and contain less than
few ten thousands of atoms

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 Quantum well, Quantum wire and Quantum dots

•When the size or dimension of a material is continuously reduced from

a large or macroscopic size, such a metre or centimetre, to a very
small size, the properties remain the same at first, then small changes
begin to occur, until finally when the size drops below100 nm,
dramatic changes in properties can occur.
•If one dimension is reduced to the nanorange while the other
dimensions remain large, them we obtain a structure known as
quantum well.
•If two dimensions are so reduced and one remains large, the resulting
structure is referred to as a quantum wire.
•The extreme case of this process of size reduction in which all three
dimensions reach the low nanometer range is called a quantum dot.

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•The word quantum is associated with the above three types of
nanostructures because the changes in properties arise from the
quantum mechanical nature of physics in the domain of the ultra small.
The above fig. represents the processes of diminishing the size for the
case of rectilinear geometry and the corresponding reductions in
curvilinear geometry.
The conduction electrons are confined in a narrow dimension and such a
configuration is referred as quantum well.
A quantum wire is a structure such as a copper wire that is long in one
dimension, but has a nanometer size as its diameter. In this case, the
electrons move freely along the wire but are confined in the transverse
directions.
The quantum dot may have the shape of a tiny cube, a short cylinder or a
sphere with low nanometre dimensions.

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 TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANTAGES OF NANOTECHNOLOGY AND NANOMATERIALS

1. IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION

• Today, most airplanes are made from metal despite the fact that
diamond has a strength-to-weight ratio over 50 times that of
aerospace aluminum.
• Diamond is expensive, it is not possible to make it in the required
shapes, and it shatters. Nanotechnology will let us inexpensively
make shatterproof diamond in exactly the shapes we want.
• Nanotechnology will dramatically reduce the costs and increase the
capabilities of space ships and space flight.
• The strength-to-weight ratio and the cost of components are
absolutely critical to the performance and economy of space ships:
with nanotechnology, both of these parameters will be improved.
• Nanotechnology will also provide extremely powerful computers
with which to guide both those ships and a wide range of other
activities in space.

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2. ATOM COMPUTERS
• Today, computer chips are made using lithography -- literally, "stone
writing."
• If the computer hardware revolution is to continue at its current pace, in a
decade or so we'll have to move beyond lithography to some new post
lithographic manufacturing technology. Ultimately, each logic element will
be made from just a few atoms.
• Designs for computer gates with less than 1,000 atoms have already been
proposed -- but each atom in such a small device has to be in exactly the
right place.
• To economically build and interconnect trillions upon trillions of such small
and precise devices in a complex three dimensional pattern we'll need a
manufacturing technology well beyond today's lithography: we'll need
nanotechnology.
• With it, we should be able to build mass storage devices that can store
more than a hundred billion billion bytes in a volume the size of a sugar
cube;
• RAM that can store a mere billion billion bytes in such a volume; and
massively parallel computers of the same size that can deliver a billion
billion instructions per second.

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3. MILITARY APPLICATIONS:
• Today, "smart" weapons are fairly big -- we have the "smart bomb" but not
the "smart bullet.“
• In the future, even weapons as small as a single bullet could pack more
computer power than the largest supercomputer in existence today,
allowing them to perform real time image analysis of their surroundings and
communicate with weapons tracking systems to acquire and navigate to
targets with greater precision and control.
• We'll also be able to build weapons both inexpensively and much more
rapidly, at the same time taking full advantage of the remarkable materials
properties of diamond.
• Rapid and inexpensive manufacture of great quantities of stronger more
precise weapons guided by massively increased computational power will
alter the way we fight wars.
• Changes of this magnitude could destabilize existing power structures in
unpredictable ways.
• Military applications of nanotechnology raise a number of concerns that
prudence suggests we begin to investigate before, rather than after, we
develop this new technology.
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4. SOLAR ENERGY
Nanotechnology will cut costs both of the solar cells and the equipment
needed to deploy them, making solar power economical.
In this application we need not make new or technically superior solar cells:
making inexpensively what we already know how to make expensively would
move solar power into the mainstream.

5. MEDICAL USES
• It is not modern medicine that does the healing, but the cells themselves: we
are but onlookers.
• If we had surgical tools that were molecular both in their size and precision,
we could develop a medical technology that for the first time would let us
directly heal the injuries at the molecular and cellular level that are the root
causes of disease and ill health.
• With the precision of drugs combined with the intelligent guidance of the
surgeon's scalpel, we can expect a quantum leap in our medical capabilities.

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 6. Other Advantages
Less Pollution
The problem with past technologies is that they pollute the environment in
cases where we humans would die in years.
A good example of a bad polluting invention would be the automobile. The
automobile ran on gas and the gas fumes destroyed the ozone layer.

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