A question which may have been addressed already, but I wasn't able to dig up.

I am a junior undergraduate majoring in physics. My goal is to work in industry and especially in the realm of nano-physics and manufactoring. I am trying to get a good list, perhaps a top ten, of universities that are best for nano-research and its applications in industry.

So, I am looking for the name of the university; its strong points; its weak points; its prospects for the future; and any links that may help in researching each institution. Also, if you could include in what realm you recommend getting a PhD at that university that would be most helpful for work in industry.

Thanks in advance to all who reply.

Well, I'm also an undergraduate majoring in physics and chemistry, and I'm also looking to go into nanotech in graduate school. My specific interest is nanoelectromechanical systems. I've been researching and here's what I've found:

Cornell
has multiple, large facilities, plenty of faculty and research groups, and excellent graduate programs. They are prolific - I see many papers being published about NEMS from Cornell.

U. Washington (Seattle)
They offer a joint Ph.D. in nanotechnology and a department of your choice (physics, EE, ChemE, Chem, etc. (no mechE!)). They have a new nanofabrication center, and some good funding.

U. Illinois @ Urbana-Champagne
#1 in the country for condensed-matter physics. plenty of activity in the nanotech areas here.

Northwestern
haven't researched them in depth yet, but they apparently have a lot of activity in this area. same goes for:

USC, Rice, Columbia, and UT Austin (UC Santa Barbara? UC LA?)

There is also some buzz around UC Berkeley and Stanford.

If you're thinking a bit more eastward, check out Penn, and UMich.

That's a lot, but go check out their programs and try to find the web pages for the active nanotech research groups. I find good stuff when I look at the department research pages, and of course, the current projects that I find described on the websites for the nano facilities.

Hope that helps, and after you've researched until your head hurts, let me know what you've found and what you think of my list!

-Jessie

Thanks for the tips Jessie. I had yet to look into Cornell. In looking around I also found that U of Oregon has a really good collaboration between nanotech and business--exactly what I am looking for.

I will post a more comprehensive list of what I have found in a few days/ weeks--depending on how much work piles up.

Note: I am doing a REU at Notre Dame in their Nano-Bio department, so I will be able to give some feedback on that during the summer. Anybody else have REU's/internships/jobs related to nanotech? Where and what do you think about 'em?

university of oregon maybe

I am an Undergraduate physics student in Canada at the University of Alberta. I am doing an industrial Internship at the National Institute for Nanotechnology here at the moment. I would say one tip when looking for a university would be if they had a good nanofabrication facility. I know Cornell and Stanford both have good ones. The Nanofab at my university is also pretty good, and is the best in Canada. The National Institute for Nanotechnology is supposed to be one of the top 5 research facilities in the world, however that might be blowing their own horn. At any rate, any of those schools that Jessie mentioned have great reputations, so you probably couldn't go wrong with any of them. My supervisor got his PhD from Cornell, so maybe I will say that ones the best?? haha. Anyways, goodluck!

Hey what would be a good choice of major for someone who wants to go into nanotech? Like for a bachelors degree I mean.

Removed

Chem-Physics double major. Or Physics-Math. Or Biology-Chemistry. Or Math-Chemistry....you get the point. But don't expect to just get a bachelors and go into nanotech, you'll at least need a masters and for all practical purposes a doctorate. I'm just repeating what I've heard, not what I know from personal experience yet, so I may be wrong.

Essentially, Bio-Physics-Chemistry all fuse at the nanoscale, it just depends on what you like out of the three (but just Biology is NOT an option). I love physics and am not fond of Chemistry, but I know I will need to know some chem as I move forward.

Also, if you don't want to do pure research your entire life, try taking one or two business classes in entrepreneurship (not Business Leadership, do something like a senior level entrepreneurship course), it will give you a better sense for business nanotech, as opposed to academia research.

Why not Biochemistry/Molecular Biology? That is the degree I'm getting this summer (The university of Maine allows every molecular biology major to double major in biochemistry automatically). Life has all sorts of nano machines, it's made up of them!