Press Releases

Notre Dame Research Group Reports Terahertz Technology Breakthrough

DATE: September 23, 2011

Notre Dame team increases the current state of terahertz technology by harnessing graphine to control the terahertz portion of the spectrum.

A team of University of Notre Dame researchers has harnessed graphene to control the terahertz portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Researchers are increasingly interested in terahertz radiation because it offers the possibility of new technologies in communications, medical imaging and chemical detection. However, terahertz waves, which are located between the lowest energy infrared light and the highest energy radio waves, are notoriously hard to produce, detect and modulate. Modulation, which involves varying the height of the terahertz waves, is an especially important property because a modulated signal can carry information and is versatile enough for applications in fields such as chemical and biological sensing.

Much of the current state of terahertz technology relies on small structures similar to semiconductor transistors which can modulate a terahertz signal at room temperature. This is a significant improvement over earlier modulators which could only operate at extremely cold temperatures.

However, the current generation of broadband terahertz modulators uses a thin layer of metal called a “metal gate” for use in tuning the terahertz signal. The use of a metal gate significantly reduces signal strength and limits signal modulation to less than 30 percent.

The Notre Dame group reported that replacing the metal gate with a single layer of graphene would expand the modulation range to more than 90 percent. Graphene has a number of desirable properties, including being a good conductor of electricity, superb thermal insulation and remarkable strength. The Notre Dame research finding potentially is a significant step in ushering in new terahertz technologies.

The research is described in the journal Applied Physics Letters. The team, consisting of researchers from the University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and its Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics initiative, including lead author Berardi Sensale-Rodriguez, Tian Fang, Rusen Yan, Michelle M. Kelly, Debdeep Jena, Lei Liu and Huili (Grace) Xing.

Contact: Berardi Sensale-Rodriguez, berardi.sensalerodriguez.1@nd.edu; Huili (Grace) Xing, hxing@nd.edu

Notre Dame Nanofabrication Facility Installing New Electron-beam Lithography System

DATE: September 21, 2011

A new electron-beam lithography system is eing installed in the Notre Dame Nanofabrication Facility, providing the ability to write 200mm waers.

The University of Notre Dame has accepted delivery of a high-end Vistec EBPG 5200 electron-beam lithography system to campus. The multi-million dollar tool, purchased from Vistec Lithography Inc., will be installed in the Notre Dame Nanofabrication Facility (NDNF) in the new Stinson-Remick Hall of Engineering. The equipment was purchased with the University’s Strategic Research Initiative funding.

“The addition of Vistec’s powerful electron-beam lithography system to our existing equipment portfolio will enable our nanofabrication facility to support the leading-edge of device research for years to come,” said Patrick Fay, professor of electrical engineering at Notre Dame and NDNF director.

The EBPG 5200 is the latest version of Vistec’s highly successful and field-proven EBPG electron-beam lithography tool series. The EBPG 5200 at Notre Dame features 50 and 100kV accelerating voltage, is equipped with a 50 MHz, 20-bit pattern generator, with large field size operation, and the ability to write full 200 mm wafers.

The Vistec EBPG 5200 routinely generates structures less than 8 mm on varying substrate sizes from piece parts of a few millimeters to full patterning across a 200 mm diameter wafer. The system incorporates an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) that provides ease of use for diverse, multi-user environments. Vistec’s high-current column design minimizes exposure time for complex nano-patterning.

The NDNF is a world-class, 9,000-square-foot teaching and research cleanroom. The facility provides a comprehensive suite of state-of-the-art equipment for designing and manufacturing integrated circuits and devices with geometries of a few nanometers.

NDNF researchers—which include internal and external academic and corporate clients—use the facility to explore a wide range of materials and processes, including silicon-related electronic devices, compound semiconductors, zinc selenide nanowires, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and organic polymer-based materials. In addition, the NDNF facilitates the study of microfluidic technologies for medical applications and micron-scale mechanical device fabrication.

The NDNF consists of three large areas: a class 10,000 area that houses equipment for chemical-mechanical polishing, wafer thinning, packaging and assembly, and molecular beam epitaxy; and class 1,000 and 100 areas that contain capabilities for metal deposition, lithography, oxidation, dielectric deposition, plasma processing, and wet-chemical processing.

The Vistec EBPG 5200 will occupy a dedicated space in the NDNF’s class 100 area.

In the 1980s, Notre Dame was one of the first universities to focus strongly on nanoelectronics. The university’s Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano), established in 1999, continues to explore the fundamental concepts of nanoscience to develop unique engineering applications using nano principles. The center is composed of a multidisciplinary team of researchers from various science and engineering fields. The invention of Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata (QCA) and the establishment of the Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery (MIND) are among NDnano’s notable accomplishments.

Contact: Robert M. Dunn, 574-631-9854, rdunn@nd.edu

I2D2 event to be held Sept. 9

DATE: September 7, 2011

Engineering students to team up with South Bend students for technological discovery day

University of Notre Dame College of Engineering undergraduates will be working with 340 fifth-grade students from the South Bend Community School Corporation on Friday (Sept. 9) as part of a technological discovery day titled, “I2D2—Imagination, Innovation, Discovery and Design at Notre Dame.”

The event will take place in the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center between 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Students will participate in two active learning projects designed to help them learn about the kinds of questions that engineers and scientists ask and answer, such as “Why do things work the way they do?” and “How do we make them work better?”

In the “Irish Pet Project,” first-year Notre Dame engineering students will work with their fifth-grade “customers” to brainstorm ideas for toy robotic pets. The Notre Dame students will then design and build these pets using the LEGO®Mindstorms® NXT system and demonstrate them at the intermediate schools at a later date, when the fifth-graders will judge them.

The South Bend students also will participate in the “2011 Domer Freewheeling Derby,” during which they will design and race LEGO vehicles to learn about energy and motion. Through racing their designs and collecting data, the students will learn how scientists and engineers test their ideas with experiments.

In addition to designing a robotic pet and competing in the derby, the students will learn about educational options available to them in engineering and sciences, have lunch on campus, be given a campus tour and receive their own LEGO kit.

This year’s I2D2 event was sponsored by Konica Minolta.

Contact: Victoria Goodrich 574-631-1220, vfroude@nd.edu or Jay Brockman, 574-631-8810, jbb@nd.edu.