nanoHUB.org Style Guide and Glossary 1.0

In general, nanoHUB style adheres to The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Ed. (CMS), and IEEE Standards Style Manual (IEEE) to resolve questions of style and usage on nanoHUB.org

CMS and IEEE styles evolve with the advent of new technologies, genres, and conventions; for this reason, these guidelines are used by the nanoHUB editors to resolve questions of style throughout the website. Familiarity with CMS, then, is key also to maintaining consistency in nanoHUB materials, which are frequently written by multiple authors possessing different bases for style. In other words, when in doubt, see CMS or IEEE manuals.

Since the style manuals do not account for each particular of evolving terminology in the nano science and nanotechnology community, the NCN Editorial Team has compiled a nanoHUB Glossary for additional information on spelling, hyphenation, and capitalization of field-specific terms. The Glossary represents the best editorial attempt to research how terms are used in the field and to represent them in such a way as to clarify language usage for nanoHUB users. Perhaps the glossary may also serve to help codify terms in the world of nano science communications. The nanoHUB Style Guide and Glossary 1.0 is separated into the following sections: General Guidelines, Specific Guidelines, and the Glossary.

General Guidelines

Audience consideration and informational density of a document: In drafting and revising documents/texts for nanoHUB.org, authors must keep their intended audience in mind. The density of information in a document must be appropriate for the audience. If a document is intended for multiple or mixed audiences (readers of different competencies and literacies), then authors must take care to tailor sections for those multiple or mixed audiences. The following table offers general guidelines.

In relation to the taxonomy of materials here at nanoHUB based on undergraduate and graduate education, authors can demonstrate consideration of the audience by using the appropriate level of detail. For example, the composition of a First-Time Users’ Guide undergraduates will be most suited to the audience if the introduction of the document clearly states the relevance of the material to the readers’ interests, mathematical models and equations are kept to a minimum, if not avoided entirely, any graphics are illustrative of points made clearly in the text, the detail level is kept simple and focused on providing a narrative, technical terms are carefully introduced by using the full English term at the first instance with a full description or definition, and only then using abbreviations.

Style Guide

Glossary

revised June 12, 2009

A helpful site:

1-D, 2-D, 3-D, or one-dimensional, etc. (hyphenated form is the standard?)

ab initio (Latin, “from the beginning”). Italicize. Hyphenate when used as an adjective, i. e. the ab-initio process

ABACUS: Assembly of Basic Applications for Coordinated Understanding of Semiconductor Devices

ACUTE: Assembly for Computational Electronics

AQME: Advancing Quantum Mechanics of Engineers

aTCADlab: A Technology Computer Aided Design Lab

applied bias: the voltage applied to the structure See

atomic force microscope: The atomic force microscope (AFM) or scanning force microscope (SFM) is a very high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy, with demonstrated resolution of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the optical diffraction limit. The precursor to the AFM, the scanning tunneling microscope, was developed by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer in the early 1980s, a development that earned them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1986. Binnig, Quate and Gerber invented the first AFM in 1986. The AFM is one of the foremost tools for imaging, measuring and manipulating matter at the nanoscale. The information is gathered by “feeling” the surface with a mechanical probe. Piezoelectric elements that facilitate tiny but accurate and precise movements on (electronic) command enable the very precise scanning. See

ballistic nanotransistor: a transistor with minimal impediment to speed of current

ballistic transport: the transport of electrons in a medium with negligible electrical resistivity due to scattering. Without scattering, electrons simply obey Newton’s second law of motion at non-relativistic speeds. See

band structure: In solid-state physics, the electronic band structure (or simply band structure) of a solid describes ranges of energy that an electron is “forbidden” or “allowed” to have. It is due to the diffraction of the quantum mechanical electron waves in the periodic crystal lattice. The band structure of a material determines several characteristics, in particular its electronic and optical properties. See

bandgap: the range of energies between existing energy bands where no energy levels exist See

Bauschinger effect: The Bauschinger effect refers to a property of materials where the material’s stress/strain characteristics change as a result of the microscopic stress distribution of the material. For example, an increase in tensile yield strength occurs at the expense of compressive yield strength. The Bauschinger effect is named after the German engineer Johann Bauschinger. See

bipolar junction transistors

biomedical engineering: the application of engineering principles and techniques to the medical field. It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to improve healthcare diagnosis and treatment. See

biosensing:

biosensor: A biosensor is a device for the detection of an analyte that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector component. It consists of 3 parts: (1) the sensitive biological element (biological material (eg. tissue, microorganisms, organelles, cell receptors, enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acids, etc), a biologically derived material or biomimic) The sensitive elements can be created by biological engineering. (2) the transducer or the detector element (works in a physicochemical way; optical, piezoelectric, electrochemical, etc.) that transforms the signal resulting from the interaction of the analyte with the biological element into another signal (i.e., transducers) that can be more easily measured and quantified; (3) associated electronics or signal processors that is primarily responsible for the display of the results in a user-friendly way. See

bipolar junction transistor (BJT): a type of transistor. It is a three-terminal device constructed of doped semiconductor material and may be used in amplifying or switching applications. Bipolar transistors are so named because their operation involves both electrons and holes, as opposed to unipolar transistors, such as field-effect transistors, in which only one carrier type is involved in charge flow. Although a small part of the transistor current is due to the flow of majority carriers, most of the transistor current is due to the flow of minority carriers and so BJTs are classified as minority-carrier devices. See

Boltmann transport equation (BTE):

bound state: In physics, a bound state is a composite of two or more building blocks (particles or bodies) that behaves as a single object. In quantum mechanics (where the number of particles is conserved), a bound state is a state in the Hilbert space that corresponds to two or more particles whose interaction energy is negative, and therefore these particles cannot be separated unless energy is spent. The energy spectrum of a bound state is discrete, unlike the continuous spectrum of isolated particles. (Actually, it is possible to have unstable bound states with a positive interaction energy provided that there is an “energy barrier” that has to be tunnelled through in order to decay. This is true for some radioactive nuclei and for some electret materials able to carry electric charge for rather long periods.) In general, a stable bound state is said to exist in a given potential of some dimension if stationary wavefunctions exist (normalized in the range of the potential). The energies of these wavefunctions are negative. See

Bravais lattice: any of 14 possible three-dimensional configurations of points used to describe the orderly arrangement of atoms in a crystal. Each point represents one or more atoms in the actual crystal, and if the points are connected by lines, a crystal lattice is formed; the lattice is divided into a number of identical blocks, or unit cells, characteristic of the Bravais lattices. The French scientist Auguste Bravais demonstrated in 1850 that only these 14 types of unit cells are compatible with the orderly arrangements of atoms found in crystals. See

bulk: back contact of a MOSFET also referred to as a substrate contact See

bulk band structure

bulk semiconductors: Frequently distinguished from mutiple quantum well (MQW) semiconductors by their single crystals and conventional heterojunction structures. See “Bulk Semiconductors” in Applied Optics 26.2 (1987): 214.

Burgers vector: often denoted by b, is a vector that represents the magnitude and direction of the lattice distortion of dislocation in a crystal lattice. See

capacitance: charge per unit voltage See

capacitor: a passive electronic component consisting of a pair of conductors separated by a dielectric. When a voltage potential difference exists between the conductors, an electric field is present in the dielectric. This field stores energy and produces a mechanical force between the plates. The effect is greatest between wide, flat, parallel, narrowly separated conductors. See

carbon nanotubes: 100 amps of electricity crackle in a vacuum chamber, creating a spark that transforms carbon vapor into tiny structures. Depending on the conditions, these structures can be shaped like little, 60-atom soccer balls, or like rolled-up tubes of atoms, arranged in a chicken-wire pattern, with rounded ends. These tiny, carbon nanotubes, discovered by Sumio Iijima at NEC labs in 1991, have amazing properties. They are 100 times stronger than steel, but weigh only one-sixth as much! They are incredibly resilient under physical stress; even when kinked to a 120-degree angle, they will bounce back to their original form, undamaged. And they can carry electrical current at levels that would vaporize ordinary copper wires. See

charge carriers: In physics, a charge carrier denotes a free (mobile, unbound) particle carrying an electric charge. Examples are electrons and ions. See

chiralities: a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. An object or a system is chiral if it cannot be superposed on its mirror image. A chiral object and its mirror image are called enantiomorphs (Greek opposite forms) or, when referring to molecules, enantiomers. A non-chiral object is called achiral (sometimes also amphichiral) and can be superposed on its mirror image. See

CMOS: complimentary metal oxide silicon (transistor) See

computational chemistry: a branch of chemistry that uses computers to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids. While its results normally complement the information obtained by chemical experiments, it can in some cases predict hitherto unobserved chemical phenomena. It is widely used in the design of new drugs and materials. See

computational electronics: refers to the physical simulation of semiconductor devices in terms of charge transport and the corresponding electrical behavior. It is related to, but usually separate from process simulation, which deals with various physical processes such as material growth, oxidation, impurity diffusion, etching, and metal deposition inherent in device fabrication leading to integrated circuits. Device simulation can be thought of as one component of technology for computer-aided design (TCAD), which provides a basis for device modeling, which deals with compact behavioral models for devices and subcircuits relevant for circuit simulation in commercial packages such as SPICE. See Chapter 1 of Dragica Vasileska’s Computational Electronics

computational engineering: a relatively new discipline of engineering. It is typically offered as a masters or doctorate program at several institutions. This is not to be confused with computer engineering (related to building computers). See

computational materials (context?)

computational science: Computational science (or scientific computing) is the field of study concerned with constructing mathematical models and numerical solution techniques and using computers to analyze and solve scientific, social scientific and engineering problems. In practical use, it is typically the application of computer simulation and other forms of computation to problems in various scientific disciplines. See

crystals: materials in which atoms are placed in a highly ordered structure. Materials that are not crystals are amorphous. See

CV measurement: capacitance versus voltage measurement See

depassivation

depletion: removal of free carriers in a semiconductor See

depletion region: In semiconductor physics, the depletion region, also called depletion layer, depletion zone, junction region or the space charge region, is an insulating region within a conductive, doped semiconductor material where the charge carriers have diffused away, or have been forced away by an electric field. See

device physics:

dielectric: a nonconducting substance, i.e. an insulator. Although “dielectric” and “insulator” are generally considered synonymous, the term “dielectric” is more often used to describe the insulating material between the metallic plates of a capacitor, while “insulator” is more often used when the material is being used to prevent a current flow across it. See

drain: contact region of a MOSFET to which the electrons in the channel flow See

drift: the motion of carriers caused by an electric field

drift-diffusion model: model of a semiconductor is frequently used to describe semiconductor devices. The assumptions of the simplified drift-diffusion model are: full ionization: all dopants are assumed to be ionized (shallow dopants); non-degenerate: the Fermi energy is assumed to be at least 3 kT below/above the conduction/valence band edge; steady state: All variables are independent of time; constant temperature: the temperature is constant throughout the device. See

double-gate: same as dual-gate

dual-gate: having two gates; see gate

E=kinetic energy

E(k), E-k: relation of kinetic energy and momentum vector, use the formula E(k).

ED: electron density

effective mass: In solid state physics, a particle’s effective mass is the mass it seems to carry in the semiclassical model of transport in a crystal. It can be shown that electrons and holes in a crystal respond to electric and magnetic fields almost as if they were particles with a mass dependent upon the their direction of travel, an effective mass tensor. The effective mass has important effects on the properties of a solid, including everything from the efficiency of a solar cell to the speed of an integrated circuit. See

eigenfunctions: In mathematics, an eigenfunction of a linear operator, A, defined on some function space is any non-zero function f in that space that returns from the operator exactly as is, except for a multiplicative scaling factor. More precisely, one has for some scalar, λ, the corresponding eigenvalue. See

eigenstates: (quantum mechanics) A dynamical state whose state vector (or wave function) is an eigenvector (or eigenfunction) of an operator corresponding to a specified physical quantity.

eigenvalues: a special set of scalars associated with a linear system of equations (i.e., a matrix equation) that are sometimes also known as characteristic roots, characteristic values (Hoffman and Kunze 1971), proper values, or latent roots (Marcus and Minc 1988, p. 144).

The determination of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a system is extremely important in physics and engineering, where it is equivalent to matrix diagonalization and arises in such common applications as stability analysis, the physics of rotating bodies, and small oscillations of vibrating systems, to name only a few. Each eigenvalue is paired with a corresponding so-called eigenvector (or, in general, a corresponding right eigenvector and a corresponding left eigenvector; there is no analogous distinction between left and right for eigenvalues). See

E-k: What is the natural language version of this relationship vector, as below? E=? [mc^2?

energy bands: a collection of closely space energy levels See

energy levels: A quantum mechanical system or particle that is bound, confined spatially, can only take on certain discrete values of energy, as opposed to classical particles, which can have any energy. These values are called energy levels. The term is most commonly used for the energy levels of electrons in atoms or molecules, which are bound by the electric field of the nucleus. The energy spectrum of a system with energy levels is said to be quantized. See

energy states: also called energy level

Fermi level: The Fermi level is an energy that pertains to electrons in a semiconductor. It is the chemical potential μ that appears in the electrons’ Fermi-Dirac distribution function, formula which is the probability that there is an electron in a particular single-particle state with energy. T is the absolute temperature and k is Boltzmann’s constant. See Wikipedia for formula .

Fermions: Particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrons that are the “constituents” of matter and account for its impenetrability. Other particles — called, “bosons” — mediate, or carry, forces between fermions. Examples would be photons, gravitons, and gluons. See

Created on 24 Nov 2009, Last modified on 28 Jun 2010