HOT Slot|Nanoscience is big

Nanoscience uses knowledge from many disciplines and has been applied in various areas.

Career Overview
The term ‘nanoscience’ is a combination of nano, from the Greek ‘nanos’ (or Latin ‘nanus’), meaning dwarf, and the word, ‘science’. It is the study of atoms, molecules, and objects whose size is on the nanometer scale (1 - 100 nanometers).

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Nanoscience is becoming such a big field because of many reasons. One is the availability of new instruments which are able to ‘see’ and ‘touch’ at this scale. Nanoscience uses knowledge from many disciplines and has been applied in various areas. Production of machines and devices used in these areas is also a very specialised field. As such, specialisations within nanoscience and nanotechnology are many.

Nanoscience is at the cutting edge of science and technology. Because of the enormous promise of this area for revolutionising medicine and production, a lot of research funding is being pumped into this area. As such, it can only grow by leaps and bounds in significance in the years to come.

Education Path
Physics, chemistry and math in Class XII level is a prerequisite for this career.

Recently, some of the IIT's have announced academic programs in nanoscience. In our country only some private institutions currently offer programs in this area. Credentials of these programs as well as of the institutions running them need to be verified carefully.

As such, study opportunities mainly involve study abroad, particularly in the USA.

Institutes
Some of the reputed universities in the United States offering courses in this field are:

University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Illinois, Harvard University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Rensselaer Centre for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures Educational programmes, North Carolina State University NanoScale Science Education, University of North Carolina Nanoscale Science Education University of South Carolina and Rice University.