• Therefore, the characterization of the materials has been one of the foundational pillars of materials science.

• The purpose of this course is to provide an introductory course on modern materials' characterizations, especially with respect to nanotechnology for both senior undergraduates and graduate students involved in interdisciplinary research.

• Although well established modern characterization techniques are available as depicted in Figure 1.03, still many new techniques are evolving due to the emergency of nanotechnology field.

Figure 1.03: Schematic of feature size versus probe size and requirement of various instruments for structural characterization. OM - Optical Microscope, SEM - Scanning Electron Microscope, XRT - X-ray Tomography, FIB - Focused Ion Beam, TEM - Transmission Electron Microscope, SAXS - Small Angle X-ray Scattering, WAXS - Wide Angle X-ray Scattering, WANS - Wide Angle Neutron Scattering.