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 Playing a Nano Drum
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  Dr Parmeshwar Prasad*
Email: parmeshwar@iisc.ac.in
Engineering is an ancient skill concerning design and structures, yet it is still evolving and constantly developing.
Over the centuries, engineers have mastered the design and selection of materials to improve instruments. The devices that used to be of the size of a building are now available in pocket forms of mobiles and computers. In recent times, physicists have learned these techniques of craftsmanship to apply devices of nanometer size.
We, from Akshay’s lab at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, work on the interface of science and engineering on the nanoscale. We make bridges and drums 100th times smaller than the width of a human hair from the thinnest possible materials ever found. These materials are known as two-dimensional
materials, graphene and molybdenum disulfide, to name a few. These materials are million times thinner than a human hair. One can imagine them as a thin sheet (membrane) of a single layer of carbon atoms. We select these materials to use as nanodevices owing to their extraordinary features such as low mass, high strength, and high geometric aspect ratio; also, they can be integrated with electronic circuits. Fig. 1 shows the pictures of a bridge and a drum fabricated using nanotechnology in a state-of-the-art facility at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, housed in IISc. We work toward understanding the mechanical, optical, and electrical properties of these devices and explore their potential applications in fundamental science and technology. The membrane of these tiny
 * Dr Parmeshwar Prasad, Post Doctoral Fellow from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, is pursuing his research on “Nano Electro Mechanical System”. His popular science story entitled “Playing a Nano Drum” has been selected for AWSAR Award.


























































































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