NanoHUB

Key takeaways

NanoHUB belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect NanoHUB to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of NanoHUB from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

nanoHUB.org is a science and engineering gateway comprising community-contributed resources and geared toward education, professional networking, and interactive simulation tools for nanotechnology. Funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF), it is a product of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN). NCN supports research efforts in nanoelectronics; nanomaterials; nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS); nanofluidics; nanomedicine, nanobiology; and nanophotonics.

History The Network for Computational Nanotechnology was established in 2002 to create a resource for nanoscience and nanotechnology via online services for research, education, and professional collaboration. Initially a multi-university initiative of eight member institutions including Purdue University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Norfolk State University, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas at El Paso, NCN now operates entirely at Purdue. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) provided grants of approximately $14 million from 2002 through 2010, with principal investigator Mark S. Lundstrom. Continuing US NSF grants have been awarded since 2007 with principal investigator Gerhard Klimeck and co-principal investigator Alejandro Strachan, with total funding of over $20 million.

Resources The Web portal of NCN is nanoHUB.org and is an instance of a HUBzero hub. It offers simulation tools, course materials, lectures, seminars, tutorials, user groups, and online meetings. Interactive simulation tools are accessible from web browsers and run via a distributed computing network at Purdue University, as well as the TeraGrid and Open Science Grid. These resources are provided by hundreds of member contributors in the nanoscience community. Main resource types:

Interactive simulation tools for nanotechnology and related fields Course curricula for educators News and events for nanotechnology Lectures, podcasts and learning materials in multiple formats Online seminars Online workshops User groups Online group meeting rooms Virtual Linux workspaces that facilitate tool development within an in-browser Linux machine

Simulation tools The nanoHUB provides in-browser simulation tools geared toward nanotechnology, electrical engineering, materials science, chemistry, and semiconductor education. nanoHUB simulations are available to users as both stand-alone tools and part of structured teaching and learning curricula comprising numerous tools. Users can develop and contribute their own tools for live deployment. Examples of tools include:

SCHRED calculates envelope wavefunctions and the corresponding bound-state energies in a typical Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) or Semiconductor-Oxide-Semiconductor (SOS) structure and a typical SOI structure by solving self-consistently the one-dimensional (1D) Poisson equation and the 1D Schrödinger equation. Quantum Dot Lab computes the eigenstates of a particle in a box of various shapes including domes and pyramids. Bulk Monte Carlo Tool calculates the bulk values of the electron drift velocity, electron average energy and electron mobility for electric fields applied in arbitrary crystallographic direction in both column 4 (Si and Ge) and III-V (GaAs, SiC and GaN) materials. Crystal Viewer helps in visualizing various types of Bravais lattices, planes and Miller indices needed for many material, electronics and chemistry courses. Also large bulk systems for different materials (Silicon, InAs, GaAs, diamond, graphene, Buckyball) can be viewed using this tool. Band Structure Lab computes and visualizes the band structures of bulk semiconductors, thin films, and nanowires for various materials, growth orientations, and strain conditions. Physical parameters such as the bandgap and effective mass can also be obtained from the computed band structures. nano-Materials Simulation Toolkit uses molecular dynamics to simulate materials at the atomic scale. DFT calculations with Quantum ESPRESSO uses density functional theory to simulate the electronic structure of materials.

Infrastructure

Rappture Toolkit The Rappture (Rapid APPlication infrastrucTURE) toolkit provides the basic infrastructure for the development of a large class of scientific applications, allowing scientists to focus on their core algorithm. It does so in a language-neutral fashion, so one may access Rappture in a variety of programming environments, including C/C++, Fortran and Python. To use Rappture, a developer describes all of the inputs and outputs for the simulator, and Rappture generates a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for the tool automatically.

Jupyter notebooks To complement the existing Rappture GUI tools within nanoHUB, the more recent browser based Jupyter notebooks are also available on nanoHUB, since 2017. Jupyter in nanoHUB offer new possibilities using the existing scientific software, and most notably all Rappture tools, within nanoHUB with the notebooks of interspersed code (e.g. Python, text, and multimedia.

Workspaces A workspace is an in-browser Linux desktop that provides access to NCN's Rappture toolkit, along with computational resources available on the NCN, Open Science Grid, and TeraGrid networks. One can use these resources to conduct research, or as a development area for new simulation tools. One may upload code, compile it, test it, and debug it. Once code is tested and working properly in a workspace, it can be deployed as a live tool on nanoHUB. A user can use normal Linux tools to transfer data into and out of a workspace. For example, sftp yourlogin@sftp.nanohub.org will establish a connection with a nanoHUB file share. Users can also use built-in WebDAV support on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux operating systems to access their nanoHUB files on a local desktop.

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with NanoHUB

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what NanoHUB claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to NanoHUB before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about NanoHUB ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of NanoHUB

In research: NanoHUB appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses NanoHUB in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: NanoHUB is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cyberinfrastructure, Nanotechnology institutions, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for NanoHUB outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study NanoHUB in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what NanoHUB means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain NanoHUB out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is NanoHUB in simple terms?

nanoHUB.org is a science and engineering gateway comprising community-contributed resources and geared toward education, professional networking, and interactive simulation tools for nanotechnology. Funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF), it is a product of the Network for Co…

Why does NanoHUB matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study NanoHUB?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on NanoHUB.