Nanotechnology kits for school children are now available

Blacksburg , VA, Oct. 15, 2003 –– School systems throughout the country may purchase a low-cost science class tool kit that provides middle and high school youth with skills in the relatively new, highly advanced field of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology blends the fields of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering. Through nanotechnology, materials are synthesized layer by layer, starting at the molecular level. With this process, designers are able to achieve desired properties such as electrical conductivity, mechanical hardness, or magnetic permeability.

For school children, the nanotechnology kit, developed by NanoSonic, Inc. of Blacksburg, Va., allows them to conduct experiments to create materials for such technologies as the next generation of electronics or permanent magnets.

The kit offers the students the chance to perform experiments using a modified electrostatic self-assembly (ESA) process. ESA is the preferred technique when creating materials at the molecular level.

The experiments are designed for middle and high school science classes. The kit includes a Nanotechnology Workbook, a CD-ROM demonstration video, and a teacher’s guide. This guide provides teachers with lesson plans that articulate how nanotechnology addresses Standards of Learning (SOLs).

A web page is provided that describes the kit products, the underlying physical concepts, and implications of the next wave of electronics to society.

Initital funding to NanoSonic for the development of the school kit came from the U.S. Department of Education (DoEd). It selected NanoSonic, a nanotechnology company, to create these kits.

Richard O. Claus, Virginia’s Outstanding Scientist for 2001, who is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech and the president of NanoSonic, directed the project.

“The kit allows the students to understand the basic principles of nanostructured media and fundamental physical properties that may be measured, and provide the opportunity to envision new materials with new properties. This, in part, is the essence of new materials science,” Claus said.

The “Nano-ESA Kit” includes a set of safe-to-handle precursor chemicals and small lab supplies. “Remarkably, the ESA processing may be performed very simply, using low-cost, safe water-soluble chemicals, and supplies that everyone has in their kitchen,” he added. ESA is an environmentally friendly process, absent of any volatile organic compounds that are commonly found in today’s microelectronic business. ESA also consumes negligible power.

The National Science Foundation supported some of the development of the ESA processing work conducted by NanoSonic. Part of the reason for the low cost of the kit is that NanoSonic now holds patents on ESA processes that can be performed at room temperature, eliminating the need for a furnace to sinter the thin films. The process can also be completed without a clean room (commonly needed when developing microelectronic devices). Using the synthesis process they propose, substrates may be dipped in small lab beakers and washed with tap water. The nanostructured materials are complete as soon as they are removed from their last water bath.

Claus said that the kits allow the students “to build their confidence in this highly technical field because they will be able to fabricate their samples many times with approximately the same results, regardless of small experimental errors.” Several college undergraduate students and high school students hired by NanoSonic with support funds from NSF have been involved in developing and testing the kits in-house, and they have won awards at regional and state science fairs.