Summer 2009
Nanoelectronics Undergraduate Research Fellowships (NURF)
Following is a complete list of the summer 2009 NURF faculty, fellowship recipients and project descriptions.
Project: Quilt packaging
Prof. Gary Bernstein
NURF recipient: Scott Garvey
Quilt Packaging (QP) is an active research program in Electrical Engineering at Notre Dame, and is funded by Sandia National Laboratory, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and Rockwell Collins International, Inc. Prof. Gary H. Bernstein is looking for an undergraduate research fellow who is interested in working on this project for at least 3 credits in the spring and over the summer with a Summer Research Fellowship. Quilt Packaging is a novel method of connecting integrated circuits, or chips, to each other by means of micron-scale metal structures that protrude from the edges. These “nodules” provide very high speed and low power chip-to-chip communications paths. The attached figure is a cartoon of a completed “quilt” composed of three separate chips that come from perhaps different materials systems, e.g. Si, GaAs and InP, or from different technologies, e.g. digital, analog and power. An undergraduate student will work with Prof. Bernstein to identify an area of investigation, possibly including the extension of QP to materials other than Si, or to novel microwave or 3-dimensional structures. Students are expected to become proficient with semiconductor processing technology, and to be active in their own area of research. The goal of this effort will be to produce a published research paper at the end of the research effort, and/or present a paper at a research conference on packaging technologies.
Project: Scanning electron microscope
Prof. Gary Bernstein
NURF recipient: Mike Padberg
The Center for Nano Science and Technology, in collaboration with the NDeRC program, runs a program in the use of scanning electron microscopes for curiosity-driven research. Those eligible to use the instrument include any ND undergraduate as well as visiting teachers, area college students, and high school students. The summer break is an opportunity to improve many aspects of the program including the instruments, training, manuals, sample preparation and more. The NURF student will also be responsible for interfacing with all summer visitors interested in the use of the SEM. The student working on this project will be involved in all phases of these aspects and will hopefully continue through the fall 2009 semester.
Project: Nanostructure assemblies for next generation solar cells
Prof. Prashant V. Kamat
NURF recipient: Kevin Goodwin
In recent years, nanomaterials have emerged as the new building blocks to construct light energy harvesting assemblies.1,2 Efforts are being made to design organic and inorganic hybrid structures that exhibit improved selectivity and efficiency towards light energy conversion. The recent advances in utilizing quantum dots or semiconductor nanocrystals as light energy harvesters provide unique opportunities for the development of next generation solar cells. Synthesis of nanostructures with well defined geometrical shapes (e.g., quantum dots, nanotubes and nanowires) adopted in our laboratory provide new strategies to utilize them for solar light energy conversion. The summer research project will involve synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials, development of viable strategies to organize nanoassemblies on electrode surfaces, and evaluate the performance of nanostructure based solar cells.
1. Kamat, P. V., Quantum Dot Solar Cells. Semiconductor Nanocrystals as Light Harvesters. J. Phys. Chem. C, 2008, 112, 18737-18753. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp806791s)
2. Kamat, P. V., Meeting the Clean Energy Demand: Nanostructure Architectures for Solar Energy Conversion. J. Phys. Chem. C, 2007, 111, 2834 - 2860. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp066952u)
Project: Nanoelectronic circuits and devices
Prof. Gregory Snider
NURF recipient: Graham Boechler
Nanoelectronics represent a path toward the continued miniaturization of computers and other electronic systems. In particular, single electrons represent the smallest element that can be used to store and process information. Projects in the group of Prof. Gregory Snider will investigate nanoelectronic devices that operate using a single electron. Projects involve interfacing these devices to conventional CMOS circuits, as well as using these devices as ultra-sensitive charge detectors. All projects will involve the fabrication and measurement of devices and circuits, providing a wide range of experiences. A working on this project will gain insight into the issues involved in the ultimate scaling of devices and the future of electronics.
Project: Interaction of CdSe quantum dots functionalized with proteins with plant cells
Prof. Vikas Tomar
NURF recipient: David Loughery
In this project, we are trying to see what changes could be brought upon in the light sensitivity of plant cells by manipulating their interaction with quantum dots in different light exposures. We are using a simple confocal microscope and an atomic force microscope for this purpose in my lab combined with a unique electromagnetic sensor setup. If successful, we could develop a project with a focus on harnessing multi-bandwidth solar energy from plant cells using quantum dot-based manipulation. The project also involves a lot of quantum mechanical and multiphysics calculations by my students. Therefore, the NURF fellow will be exposed to both the computations and experiments.
Project: Experimental studies on heat transfer and heat transfer enhancement at the microscale
Prof. David Go
NURF recipient: Daniel Pohlman
Projects in the Small Scale Transport Research Laboratory revolve around investigating charge, fluid, and energy transport at scales from millimeters to micrometers. There are a few different projects that we are currently exploring, including studying the ionization of air (micro plasmas), electrically enhanced spray cooling, and nano-fiber enhanced boiling. The student will have the opportunity to build and test experimental apparatus and analyze the resulting data.
Project: Label-free optical chemical biosensor using a subwavelength nanocapillary array membrane fabricated by nanosphere lithography
Prof. Paul Bohn
NURF recipient: Matt Perron
This project targets the development of a novel integrated nanoscale chemical sensor for specific antigen detection using a low-cost nanofabrication technique. The sensing mechanism will be surface plasmon enhanced transmission through a nanostructured metallic feature, the Au nanocapillary array membrane (NCAM). The fabrication procedure proposed here will employ a self assembled monolayer of polymer nanospheres to form the periodic triangular nanostructure. Nanosphere lithographic patterning represents a low-cost benchtop alternative to focused ion beam milling or electron beam lithography for patterning the plasmonic lattice. The sensor will be tuned to a specific bioanalyte by Au-thiol self assembled monolayer chemistry. Incorporating the sensor into a microfluidic device will leverage the advantages of fast diffusive transport and digital sample control with nanoscale detection volume offered by the Au-NCAM. Finally, the effectiveness of the integrated sensor will be explored by quantifying several figures of merit: sensitivity, accuracy, and limits of detection.
Project: Cytotoxicologic sensors based on impedance spectroscopy
Prof. Paul Bohn
NURF recipient: Kevin Sallah
Changes of shapes and morphology are common physiological phenomena of living cells in response to the variation of the cell environment. When living cells are immobilized on the electrode surfaces, morphologic changes of the cells normally induce detectable impedance variations. This project aims to develop cytotoxicologic microsensors of single living cell using impedance measurements as the sensing mechanism. Efforts will focus on first fabrication of microfluidic devices consisting of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels and microelectrodes (or microelectrode arrays) using microfabrication techniques, followed by immobilization of living cells on the microelectrode surfaces and detection of impedance changes of the electrodes induced by morphologic changes of the attached cells under various toxicological compounds.
Project: Computing with nanoscale magnets
Prof. Sharon Hu
NURF recipient: Evan Lent
Numerous research efforts are looking for a new logic device to either replace or augment CMOS technology to continue the performance scaling trends that we have seen for the last 40 years. Computation based upon the interactions between magnets with nanometer feature sizes (MQCA) could help in this regard: It is estimated that if 1010 magnets switch 108 times/second, the magnets would only dissipate about 0.1 W of power. When the drive circuitry is included, functional units could still outperform end-of-the-roadmap CMOS equivalents by several orders of magnitude in energy-delay-product. Moreover, many of the circuit structures required for application-level tasks have already been experimentally demonstrated. Still, additional work is needed. To determine if MQCA can be a viable alternative to CMOS at the application-level, our research group is addressing five fundamental questions: (1) What is the aggregate, system-level energy associated with a computational task interest? (2) Are more complex circuit structures feasible? (Lines and gates in isolation must be able to interact with one another.) (3) How tolerant will systems of MQCA devices be to fabrication variation? (4) How will groups of magnets interact with the required drive circuitry and how will the states of individual magnets be detected? (We have fabricated clock lines clad with permalloy, have populated the surface with nanomagnets, and are currently working to test.) (5) Can system-level architectures that take advantage of MQCA's nearest neighbor interactions translate to performance wins at the application-level? Application-level performance is the ultimate benchmark and must be considered. Research projects can be directed at any of the above questions depending on student interest.
Project: Nanofabrication of spin-based semiconductor heterostructures
Profs. Jacek Furdyna and Margaret Dobrowolska-Furdyna
NURF recipient: Kirk Post
The aim of this project is to expose the undergraduate students to some of the techniques used in fabrication and characterization of spin-electronic (“spintronic”) materials. The students will be involved in both the growth of thin-films using the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) machine available in the Department of Physics, and in nanofabrication using facilities available in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Specifically, the students will be involved in the following activities:
a) Design and growth of nano-scale quantum heterostructures involving the ferromagnetic semiconductor GaMnAs using molecular beam epitaxy.
b) Magneto-transport measurements on the structures grown by MBE, with the goal to study spin dynamics. This component of the program will involve the use of optical lithography in order to prepare electrical contacts to the structures, and will also expose the student to the art and science of what it takes to make ohmic and non-ohmic contacts.
c) 3D tomography studies of ferromagnetic semiconductors and their heterostructures.
d) The development of nano-scale ferromagnetic semiconductor quantum wires and quantum dots using E-beam lithography.
Check back in January 2010 for summer 2010 NURF opportunities!
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