Spring 2018

2.370/ 2.37 Fundamentals of Nanoengineering

Instructors

Lectures: Professor Nicolas G. Hadjiconstantinou, Room 3-364, x2-2280, ngh@mit.edu

Teaching Assistant: Mojtaba Forghani, Room 3-361, x8-5753, mojtaba@mit.edu

Time and Place

Lectures: MW 1:00 PM–2:30 PM Room 3-333

Recitation: F 2:00 PM Room 3-333

Office Hours: Professor Nicolas Hadjiconstantinou Room 3-364

Wednesday 2:30-3:30PM
and by appointment

Office Hours: Mojtaba Forghani TBA

Monday 2:30-3:30PM
and by appointment

The Role of Recitation

The Recitation section will be used to cover material in parallel with lecture when needed so that
the class and assignments can stay on schedule with reasonable due dates for the latter. The
material to be covered in Recitation includes: 1) a review of basic probability, scheduled to take
place in the first two weeks of classes (Feb 9 and Feb 16); 2) the topic “Introduction to Molecular
Simulation,” expected to start when regular lecture completes the discussion of the various
statistical ensembles (in module Introduction to Statistical Mechanics). We estimate that this will
be in late February and will take 5-6 Recitation sections to complete. An announcement will be
sent closer to the starting date.

Examinations

There will be one take-home exam. The exam will be handed out on Wed., April 11 and collected
at 1:00pm on Wed., April 18. It will cover items 1-4 of the topic list below.

Grading

Grading criteria and assignments for 2.370 (U) and 2.37 (G) will, in general, be different. The
contribution of the exam and other assignments to the final grade is as follows:

Homework: 40%

Exam: 30%

Project: 30%
 Spring 2018
2.370/ 2.37 Fundamentals of Nanoengineering

Homework

Homework problems will be typically assigned each week and will be due at the beginning of
Wednesday lecture of the following week. No late homework will be accepted. You may discuss
the problems with others in class, but you must: (a) write up your eventual solution independently,
and (b) list the names of students with whom you discussed the problem set.

Project

The project is computational in nature and the associated report will be due on the last day of classes.
A nominal (recommended) project will be made available mid-March. Students should feel free to
propose their own (computational) project of scope that is similar to the nominal project; interested
students should develop a proposal in consultation with the Instructor in Charge and submit this
proposal for approval by March 21.

Texts

Recommended textbooks:
1) Molecular Driving Forces, by Dill & Bromberg, Second Edition (Garland Science), ISBN
0815344309.
2) Nanoscale Energy Transport and Conversion, by Chen (Oxford University Press), ISBN
139780195159424.

More extensive material on solid-state physics can be found in Introduction to Solid State Physics,
by Kittel (Wiley). More extensive and advanced material on statistical physics can be found in
Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics, by Reif (McGraw-Hill). A good and extensive
reference for Quantum Mechanics is the textbook Quantum Mechanics by Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu
and Laloe (Wiley-Interscience). Good reference books for Molecular simulation:
1) Computer Simulation of Liquids, by Allen and Tildesley (Oxford University Press).
2) Understanding Molecular Simulation, by Frenkel and Smit (Academic Press).

Course Website

The course will be using the Stellar (stellar.mit.edu) website.

 Spring 2018
2.370/ 2.37 Fundamentals of Nanoengineering

Topics to be covered
1. Introduction to molecular approaches (approximately 1 week)

Molecular interactions and characteristic magnitudes

2. Statistical mechanics (approximately 3 weeks)

Equilibria, entropy, heat, work and energy. Boltzmann distribution. Thermodynamics:

fundamental relations, driving forces, partition functions, phase change

3. Quantum Mechanics (approximately 2 weeks)

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, electronic states, quantization examples, quantum

statistical mechanics

4. Solid-state physics (approximately 2 weeks)

Origins of electronic states and lattice vibration spectra. Thermal and electronic properties
of crystals

5. Introduction to molecular simulation (approximately 6 Recitation lectures)

Molecular Dynamics, Monte Carlo, Brownian Dynamics

6. Kinetics (approximately 2 weeks)

Diffusion of mass, momentum and energy. Transport mechanisms (diffusive/ballistic).

Boltzmann equation.

7. Electrokinetics (approximately 1 week)

Debye layer, electrophoresis, electroosmotic flow, electrokinetic separation and sensing