Free and Open Source Software For Nanotechnology By

Nanotechnology and IT

Nanotechnology is the study of controlling matter at atomic and molecular scale Objects are measured in nanometers and unseen to the naked eye or even using optical microscopes Therefore, specific equipment (ex : AFM, SEM and STM) is used and cost for the research is higher IT can assist nanotechnology education to improve in effectiveness and reduce the cost by means of modeling and simulating the nano-world in a virtual environment

Ninithi- FOSS for Nanotechnology Education

Ninithi- a free and open-source software which is capable of visualizing Carbon Nanotubes, Nanoribbons, Graphene and Fullerenes and plotting the graphs illustrating electrical properties of nanostructures It is a virtual material laboratory Done using Java3D and Java as main technologies and available for both Windows and Linux Ninithi 1.0 can be downloaded from www.ninithi.lk and is released under the GPL license

Carbon Nanotubes
3-D visualization of the atomic structure is drawn when the inputs (chirality vector(n,m) and length) are provided.

(a) a (5,5) armchair nanotube (c) a (5,9) chiral nanotubeand

(b) a (8,0) zigzag nanotube (d) a nanotube in a different viewing angle.

Fullerene
3-D visualization of the fullerene is drawn when the particular fullerene structure is selected.

Colors and sizes of atoms and bonds can be changed with the view

Graphene and Carbon Nanoribbons

Graphene is an atom thick layer of graphite. This material is widely used in nanoelectronics due to its electrical properties.

Carbon nanoribbon is a ribbon that cut along a given vector on a graphene layer.

Electrical properties

Software can plot graphs illustrating the electrical properties of a given carbon nanotube or graphene layer Plots have the properties such as zooming in and out, getting data set and saving to an image file

Band-structure of a nanotube

Band-structure of a Graphene

Proof of Concept

We have derived generalized equations and new algorithms to rigorously describe the carbon nanostructures Research paper based on ninithi was published in International Conference on Mathematical Modelling & Computer Simulation, 2010, Malaysia. Paper is available on IEEE Xplore http://doi. ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/AMS.2010.97 Ninithi is accepted to be available as a resource of NanoHUB a suite of nanotechnology related content for nanotechnology education, maintained by Purdue University, USA

Ninithi on nanoHUB

Endorsement by Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology

Users of Ninithi

Lecturers Students Nano scientists

Enthusiasts

Uniqueness of Ninithi
Availability of an infinite number of nanostructures with different geometries Electrical properties study by changing different material parameters Study of carbon nanostructures at zero cost Free for all to download and use Opensource and easy extendibility by third party Graphical User Interface with a high quality 3D graphics environment

Ninithi.next
Extend ninithi to a nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) design software in bottom-up approach Create an extended material library to support the NEMS design software Support nano scientists and educators by providing more virtual lab tools Position this software as a global standard for NEMS design

Questions & Answers

Thank You!