“Nanotechnology is inevitable," says Wang, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at UMR. “We’re trying to manufacture high performance devices and trying to squeeze more elements into a smaller, ever-shrinking volume. Eventually we will reach a limit where the old techniques do not apply and will not help us anymore."

Wang, with the assistance of a $400,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, is helping to overcome that limitation by investigating at the atomic scale how nanoparticles self-assemble. The research will help bring the nanotechnology community one step closer to manufacturing miniature, high-performance devices, Wang says.

“In our computer simulations, we use very simple physics or rules learned from nature about how atoms and molecules behave and interact with each other," Wang explains. “We generate atoms and then let them follow those few simple rules, so each atom behaves like a real atom in a real system. We monitor them and then extract useful information from the computer simulation. A nanoparticle is an ideal target for computer simulation because each atom matters in a nanoparticle."

A class act

Wang is incorporating his research expertise into a new required undergraduate course, “Molecular Chemical Engineering," as well as a new elective course, “Molecular Simulation in Engineering and Science." These two courses will help encourage students in biological and chemical engineering to look at engineering systems and problems from molecular perspectives, Wang says.

Want to learn more?

Listen to KUMR's feature as Jee-Ching Wang explains his work with nanoparticle self-assembly, hosted by UMR's Vice Provost for Research Wayne Huebner -- Interview (RealPlayer format)