Engineering major and Nanotechnology

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Leon W Zhang
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Hi,
I am a freshmen engineering student. I want to be a professional engineering in Nanotechnology field. What kind of engineering do I have to pursue for this technology? And what do you think of the future of this technology?
 
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Leon W Zhang said:
Hi,
I am a freshmen engineering student. I want to be a professional engineering in Nanotechnology field. What kind of engineering do I have to pursue for this technology? And what do you think of the future of this technology?


At the current point I would suggest going into Physics, not engineering if you want to do nanotech. You would also have to do a biochem minor probably (or something along those lines). We have a nanotech lab here on campus and all the people there are Physics majors with a large number of chemistry and biochem courses (i actually considered working there at one point, its fascinating stuff, but i had little interest in taking all that biochem, so i went with astrophysics instead). Most research in Nanotech is into gudied self-assembly, how to get nanostructures to assemble themselves by specifically structuring them to do it. I suppose Chemical Engineering might be relevant, but I really think physics would be better.
 
If you would consider going abroad, the dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at University College London are offering a 4 year Masters of Engineering program in Nanotechnology tentatively going live in 2006. Though I would imagine that's less "pure science" and more toward a nanotechnology in electronics approach.