A 5-day Nanotechnology Summer School “Nanotechnology: From Science to Systems and beyond” was organised by the IEEE Nanotechnology Council- Sensors Council Joint Student Chapter (IEEE NC SC JSC) at Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, India from June 16-20, 2018. Over 90 people, from across the world, participated in the event comprising of 25 academicians and 67 students. The summer school successfully provided a platform for interested students/professionals to interact and learn about the latest developments in the field of nanotechnology. With over 24 invited talks, each day of the Summer school was dedicated to a unique field of research buzzing with innovations. Hands-on training session were also organized each day to acquaint the participants to the state-of-the-art nanofabrication and nano characterization facilities at our centre. The participants gained knowledge through seminar talks from scientists pioneering in the said field of research and through intricately designed hands-on sessions for better understanding of the topics discussed. IEEE NTC Summer School 2018 started with a grand ceremony with inauguration speech from Prof. Rudra Pratap representing IEEE Bangalore section, Dr. M.N.Kumar representing IEEE Nanotechnology Bangalore Section, Prof. Navakanta Bhat and Prabhat Vashishth representing IEEE NC SC JSC. The importance of Nanotechnology in today’s world was emphasised with special mention about IEEE Nanotechnology activities in India and abroad.

Day 1 was dedicated to Nanoelectronics with the first talk by Prof. Navakanta Bhat on “Tunable Steep Slope MoS2 Transistors”, followed by Prof Digbijoy Nath’s talk on “GaN based High electron Mobility devices”. Prof. Ayushman Sen from The Pennsylvania State University gave an enriching, interactive and enthusiastic talk on nanoscale machines and their applications. Final talk of the day was by Dr. Vinay Kumar, a CeNSE alumnus and co-founder and CEO of Pathshodh Healthcare, a start-up incubated at IISc., about his PhD work and how it got translated into a product. With question and answer sessions after each talk all the participants actively participated in all the sessions.

Dr.Meyya Meyappan, NASA Ames Research Centre, had the first talk on second day of Summer School on “Beyond Moore’s Law”. He described about the Roadmap for beyond Moore’s law era with discussion on two emerging area: nanoscale vacuum electronics and printed electronics.Then Prof. Masahiro Yamaguchi,Tohuku University spoke about “Soft Magnetic Thin Film Applications based on Nanotechnology”. This lecture began with a review of nanostructure controlled soft magnetic material covering nano particles and sputter-deposited thin films. Then thin film applications at radio frequencies was discussed for future system-in-package (SiP) and system-on-chip (SoC) technologies. The stage was then handed over to our next speakers from Russia, Dr. Victor Koledov and Dr. Svetlana Gratowski. They gave an amazing talk on new functional materials and shape memory alloy nanogripper. The day ended with a talk on “Moore’s Law and beyond” by Dr. M.N. Kumar, Aquantia.

Third day was dedicated to Nano-Photonics and started with an enthusiastic talk by Prof. Gururaj Naik from Rice University on hot Nano-Photonics. It was followed by Dr. Varun Raghunathan’s interactive talk on non-linear optical microscopy. Next were lectures by Prof. Shankar Selvaraja and Prof. V.R. Supradeepa from CeNSE, IISc on Photonics Integrated Circuits and High Power Lasers respectively. The day Ended with an industrial talk by Dr. Vasan Sambandamurthy from Biocon on Anti-Microbial Resistance. We also had a special lecture by Prof.Rudra Pratap focussing on how to choose a career path in research and the students thoroughly enjoyed the vivacious and zealous interaction with Prof. Pratap.

Fourth Day was dedicated to NEMS/MEMS with lectures from CeNSE faculty members. Prof. Srinivasan Raghavan had an interactive session on nanomaterials, followed by Prof. Rudra Pratap’s talk on cricketinspired MEMS speakers. Then Prof. Prosenjit Sen gave a talk on antibacterial super-hydrophobic devices and cell squeezing using air-liquid interface followed by Prof. Sourabh Chandorkar’s talk on dissipative mechanisms in MEMS devices. Final talk of the day was by Prof. M.M. Nayak on Advanced MEMS Sensors for Aerospace Applications. Final Day was dedicated to Nano- Biotechnology and started with a talk by Prof. Thomas Thundat from SUNY Buffalo on Recent Advances in Nano-Mechanical Biosensors. Then Prof. Ambarish Ghosh, IISc gave a different perspective on the subject through his talk on Magnetic Nano-Swimmers for Biological Applications, followed by Prof. Manoj Varma and Prof Akshay Naik’s talk on Biosensors in NEMS. Lastly, Hands-on sessions everyday included demonstration of fabrication techniques and hands-on experience on high end characterisation tools.

The sessions comprised of sessions on microwave synthesis of nanomaterial and characterisation of Gallium Oxide (Ga2O3) using SEM and XRD, 2D transistor fabrication and characterisation, design, fabrication and characterisation of microring resonators, MEMS Cantilever fabrication and characterisation using LDV and superhydrophobic surface fabrication and drop impact characterisation using high Speed camera.

The summer school received great feedback from all the participants and the organization as well as the content was appreciated by one and all. The participants found the fiveday event refreshing and inspiring. The delegates were impressed by the highly successful research in nanotechnology and were delighted to have a first-hand experience of it.