Advanced nanostructured materials used in energy conversion and production, membrane electrode assemblies for fuel cells, photovoltaic devices, nanoporous materials for acoustic and thermal insulation, energy storage devices such as lithium ion batteries.

Non-covalent interactions; molecular recognition; self-assembly; fluorescence and molecular devices; the chemistry, properties and application areas of major anion, cation or neutral molecule hosts such as crown ethers, cryptands, cucurbiturils, calixarenes and cyclodextrins; examples of artificial, self-assembled systems that are mimicking the important biological processes as well as some related studies from current literature.

Chemical transformations and reactions at surfaces. Metal and oxide surfaces; introduction of experimental techniques for surface characterization; dynamics, thermodynamics, and kinetics of processes at gas/solid interface; liquid-solid interactions; fundamentals of heterogenous catalysis; surface growth and epitaxy.

Introduction to Microsystems, MEMS and its integration with optics; Microfabrication and process integration; MEMS Modeling and design; Actuator and sensor design; Mechanical structure design; Optical system design basics; Packaging; Optical MEMS application case studies; Scanning systems (Retinal Scanning Displays, Barcode scanners); Projection display systems (DMD and GLV); Infrared imaging cameras; Optical switching for telecommunications.

Differences between the small molecules and macromolecules, different groups of polymers under addition and condensation polymers; thermosets and thermoplastics, basic structural features and the related properties: backbone , pendant group, intermolecular interactions, intramolecular interactions, diluents, crosslinking, block copolymers. Also discusses supramolecular structures, blends, composites and IPNs; free volume, packing, energy of mixing, crystallization, Flory-Huggins, Flory-Fox equation.

Advanced level thermodynamics, entropy, free energy, physical conversion of pure Materials and mixtures, phase rules and phase diagrams, chemical equilibrium, electrochemistry, chemical reaction rate, complex reaction kinetics, molecular reaction Dynamics, statistical thermodynamics, molecular structures.

Crystal structures, Synthesis methods, determination of crystal structures; imperfections, defects in metals and ceramics, vacancies, substitutional and interstitial impurities, dislocation defects in ionic solids, Phase diagrams.

SEMINAR

Survey of the properties and applications of photonic materials and devices; semiconductors; photon detectors, light emitting diodes, noise in light detection systems; light propagation in anisotropic media, Pockels and Kerr effects, light modulators, electromagnetic wave propagation in dielectric waveguides, waveguide dispersion; nonlinear optical materials, second harmonic generation, Raman converters.

Quantum mechanical description of the molecular structure; exact solution of simple systems, approximate solutions to molecular problems; variational solutions, molecular orbital theory, Hückel approximation, self-consistent-field theory, semiempirical and ab-initio methods, and electron correlation. Properties such as interaction potential functions, electrostatic potential maps and population analysis will be analyzed using MOPAC, GAUSSIAN 94 and MOLCAD.