Overview of the Capstone Semester

The 18 credits earned in the six-course Capstone Semester apply to every student’s career path. When taken as a two-year degree, the 18 credits you earn in your Capstone Semester can later be transferred into select four-year degree programs across the state. Pennsylvanians' simply pay the tuition for the Capstone Semester credits to their home NMT partner institution according to its current tuition rates.

Coursework is continuously evolving to keep the content up to date. Learn more about the coursework.

While attending the Capstone Semester, Pennsylvanians' may be eligible to receive a partial room and board grant. This Pennsylvania support is provided through a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvanian which is administered by the Centre for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization. Please check with your home institution for room and board grant availability.

Receive hands-on training with the latest nanotechnology fabrication and characterization equipment at one of the nation’s leading research universities.

As a NMT Capstone Semester student, you’ll receive the most current, hands-on exposure available in nanofabrication manufacturing and characterization technology. You’ll work in groups with other students from different schools and diverse backgrounds, enhancing each other’s experience.

• Cleanroom protocols
• Material processing and characterization
• Hardware training
• Safety and environmental training
• Computer simulation

Capstone graduates enjoy exclusive access to a powerful job network and receive industry announcements and job postings, even if they are continuing their education.

This course provides an overview of the materials, safety and equipment issues encountered in the practice of “top down” and “bottom up” nanofabrication. It focuses on environment, health , and safety (EHS) issues in equipment operation and materials handling. Topics to be covered include: cleanroom operation, OSHA lab standard safety training, health issues, biosafety levels (BSL) guidelines, and environmental concerns. Safety issues dealing with nanofabrication equipment, materials, and processing will also be discussed including those pertinent to biological materials, wet benches, thermal processing tools, plasma based equipment, optial, e-beam, stamping and embossing lithography tools, vacuum systems and pumps, gas delivery systems and toxic substance handling and detection. Specific material handling procedures to be discussed will include corrosive, flammable, and toxic materials, biological materials, carcinogenic materials, DI water, solvents, cleaners, photo resists, developers, metals, acids, and bases. The course will also concentrate on safe and responsible equipment maintenance and operation. This aspect will be carried out as part of the equipment overview emphasizing EHS issues.

This course is the hands-on introduction to the processing involved in “top down”, “bottom up”, and hybrid nanofabrication. The majority of the course details a step-by-step description of the equipment, facilities processes and process flow needed to fabricate devices and structures. Students learn to appreciate processing and manufacturing concerns including process control, contamination, yield, and processing interaction. The students design process flows for micro- and nano-scale systems. Students learn the similarities and differences in “top down” and “bottom up” equipment and process flows by undertaking hands-on processing. This hands-on exposure covers basic nanofabrication processes including colloidal chemistry, self-assembly, catalyzed nanoparticle growth, lithography, wet and dry etching, physical vapor deposition, and chemical vapor deposition.

This course is an in-depth, hands-on exposure to materials fabrication approaches used in nanofabrication. Students learn that these processes can be guided by chemical or physical means or by some combination of these. Hands-on exposure will include self-assembly; colloidal chemistry; atmosphere, low-pressure and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition; sputtering; thermal and electron beam evaporation; nebulization and spin-on techniques. This course is designed to give students hands-on experience in depositing, fabricating and self-assembling a wide variety of materials tailored for their mechanical, electrical, optical, magnetic, and biological properties.

This course is a hands-on treatment of all aspects of advanced pattern transfer and pattern transfer equipment including probe techniques; stamping and embossing; e-beam; and optical contact and stepper systems. The course is divided into five major sections. The first section is an overview of all pattern generation processes covering aspects from substrate preparation to tool operation. The second section concentrates on photolithography and examines such topics as mask template, and mold generation. Chemical makeup of resists will be discussed including polymers, solvents, sensitizers, and additives. The role or dyes and antireflective coatings will be discussed. In addition, critical dimension (CD) control and profile control of resists will be investigated. The third section will discuss the particle beam lithographic techniques such as e-beam lithography. The fourth section covers probe pattern generation and the fifth section explores embossing lithography, step-and-flash, stamp lithography, and self assembled lithography.

This course will cover in detail the processing techniques and specialty hardware used in modifying properties in nanofabrication. Material modification steps to be covered will include etching, functionalization, alloying, stress control and doping. Avoiding unintentional materials modification will also be covered as well as hands-on materials modification and subsequent characterization.

This course examines a variety of techniques and measurements essential for testing and for controlling material fabrication and final device performance. Characterization includes electrical, optical, physical, and chemical approaches. The characterization experience will include hands-on use of tools such as the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), 1 nm resolution field emission SEM, fluorescence microscopes, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.