Courses & research | NanoElectronics

During your Master’s in Electrical Engineering, you will earn 120 EC within two years. In addition to the two compulsory courses for all master’s students in Electrical Engineering, you will take four mandatory specialisation courses to develop expertise in nanoelectronics. You will also take elective courses to deepen your knowledge or broaden your expertise by exploring related disciplines. In your second year, you will do an internship and conduct research for your master’s thesis.

European Credit Transfer System

Study workload at Dutch universities, and in the European Union as a whole, is represented in EC, also known as ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System). In the Netherlands, each credit represents 28 hours of work.

STRUCTURE

Year 1	Number of EC
Philosophical and societal courses For all Master’s in Electrical Engineering students.	5 EC	Perspectives on Engineering Design Philosophy of Engineering: Ethics
Mandatory specialisation courses For all students in Nanoelectronics.	25 EC	Materials Science Nanoelectronics In addition, you have to choose two from the following mandatory courses: Machine Learning I Quantum Mechanics 2 Machine Learning II Technology Advanced Semiconductor Device Physics Integrated Circuit Technology Semiconductor Project
Electives and homologation courses You can choose courses that match your interests and career ambitions. Also, you can take elective courses from other specialisations of the Master’s in Electrical Engineering or related master’s programmes. You will do this in consultation with your mentor.	30 EC	In addition, we highly recommend the following course: Small Signals and Detection Suggested elective courses: Introduction to Superconductivity Nanomaterials Research Advanced Quantum Mechanics Bionanotechnology Introduction to the Physics of Correlated Electrons
Year 2	Number of EC
Internship	20 EC	In the second year, you will do an internship preparing you for the professional field.
Master’s thesis	40 EC	In the final three quarters, you will join a research group to complete your master’s thesis.
Total EC	120 EC

or meet online with a student and gain first-hand experience!

Internship

In the second year of your Master’s in Electrical Engineering, you will do an internship. That way, you can apply the knowledge and skills you have acquired during your studies at a quantum technology company, industrial machinery manufacturing company, research institute, or nanotechnology start-up in the Netherlands or abroad. The EEMCS faculty at the University of Twente has connections with a large number of research institutes, high-tech companies, and other organisations where you can do your internship.

Previous students have done internships at:

international research and development centres, such as Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) and Toyota's Research and Development
leading suppliers to the semiconductor industry, such as ASML
research universities, such as the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia

Master's thesis

You will complete your Master’s by writing your master’s thesis. You can conduct research within the NanoElectronics (NE) research group or do an external master’s thesis at a company. For example, in a previous assignment, a student designed and fabricated single-electron transistors, closely examining individual electrons. Thanks to our collaboration with the International Research and Development Centre IMEC, you can work on exciting master’s projects focused on designing, fabricating, and researching quantum devices using CMOS platform technology.

As part of your master’s thesis, you can undertake a research project such as:

Can we make single-electron transistors and use them to detect individual electrons in a nanostructure?
Is it possible to recreate the brain by using electronic networks made of dopant atoms in a silicon nanostructure?
Can we detect Majorana particles in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire systems?

Career perspectives