Syllabus: Introduction to Micro- and Nanofluidics for Engineers and Physical Scientists (Three hour lecture, 1 hour lab)

Syllabus for a 4 hour (3 hour lecture, 1 hour lab) semester course 15 weeks long, assuming 30 lectures of length 1 hour 12 minutes, two lectures per week, and does not include exam periods. The lab meets once per week, with two lectures on fabrication and experimental methods – the content of lecture 6a. If the class meets three times per week, prorate lectures to 45.

Objective: The objective of this course is to introduce students to the basic physical foundations of incompressible fluid mechanics appropriate to micro and nanosize conduits. The course will emphasize the fundamental principles involved in the formulation and solution of problems in fluid mechanics and mass transfer for pressure-driven and electrically driven motions of biofluids and individual components such as ions. On completion of the course, the student should be able to extract from a raw physical situation the essential principles from which a useful fluid mechanical model may be developed.

The lab will provide students with an introduction to the design, fabrication, and testing of microfluidic and nanofluidic devices and how practical devices can be analyzed theoretically.