Studying Nanotechnology in the UK

Nanotechnology is one of the most exciting areas in science and engineering today.

What is Nanotechnology?

The technical definition of nanotechnology is the manipulation of atoms and molecules to produce a more significant product, which essentially makes it an amalgamation of phsycis, chemistry and biology.

In layman’s term, nanotechnology is the study of atoms and how they interact. Pick any object around you, your smartphone or even you t-shirt. Now think about what it does well and what it doesn’t do well. Your t-shirt for instance makes you look great, but if you wear your t-shirt on a hot summer day or while working out, the sweat will be visible on the t-shirt, but if its atoms are manipulated, you can produce a material which is sweatproof.

Everything good or bad depends on the individual atoms. Nanotechnology helps understanding what is happening on the nano scale. Nanotechnology can be studied at masters level in the UK.

Application of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is used in almost every industry but the main application of nanotechnology is in:

Automobiles
Shipbuilding
Aerospace and defence
Food and drinks
Consumer goods
Life sciences
Textiles

UK universities offering Nanotechnology programmes

The UK currently invests over £650m into nanotechnology research, with the following universities receiving much of the funding which funnels through to their programmes offered to students.

University of Cambridge (£27m funding) – Master in Micro – & Nano Enterprise
Imperial College London (£19m) – MRes in Nanomaterials
University of Oxford (£37m) – MSc in Nanotechnology for Medicine and Health Care
University of Manchester (£8m) – Nanostructured Materials MSc by Research
University of Sheffield (£21m) – MSc Nanomaterials and Material Science and MSc Nanoscale Science and Technology
University of Southampton (£7.5m) – M.Sc. Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology
University of Glasgow (£8m) – MSc Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
University of Surrey (£11m) – MSc in Nanotechnology and Nanoelectronic Devices