It is common to differentiate between two ways of building a
nanodevice: a top-down approach where we start from something big and
chisel out what we want and a bottom-up approach where we start from
something small like atoms or molecules and assemble what we want.
When it comes to describing electrical resistance, the standard
approach could be called a "top-down" one that starts from large
conductors and works its way down. In this talk I will present a
different view of electrical conduction, one that could be called a
bottom-up viewpoint. I use this viewpoint to introduce listeners to
the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method widely used to
simulate all kinds of nanoscale devices from small molecules to
carbon nanotubes to silicon nanotransistors.
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