Introduction
The purpose of this postgraduate program is to educate new scientists in the subject area of Microsystems and nanotechnology. Tremendous developments have taken place in this subject area during the recent years and even more intense ones are expected to appear in the years to come. Microsystems fabrication is quite similar to that of the integrated circuits and it is based on the so called batch fabrication. Batch fabrication is considered as a key point in the development of classical microelectronics.
Microsystems applications range from health and medicine to environment, energy systems, and telecommunications. Conventionally, one can speak of nanotechnology when the dimensions of the components of a microsystem fall below 100nm. Although nanotechnology covers a wide range of diverse activities the present postgraduate course gives emphasis to the transition area between Microsystems and nanotechnology and its applications to microelectronics and sensor design, fabrication and testing.
The diversity of the knowledge required for the development of such structures makes the subject matter an interdisciplinary one. The design of a course in Microsystems and nanotechnology at a postgraduate level has seriously taken into account this issue. The program has been designed in such a way that provides adequate knowledge at two levels: a) Understanding technological issues at a molecular level e.g. solid state physics of the nanomaterials. b) Understanding technological issues at the nano-macro-scale or system-level.
The faculties of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the collaborating Research Institutes involved in the design and delivery of the course are:
- The Faculty of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences (Coordination)
- The Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- The Faculty of Chemical Engineering
- The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
- The Faculty of Mining Engineering and Metalllurgy
- The Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of the National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos"
- The Institute of Theoretical and Physical Chemistry of NHRF
- The Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, FORTH