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Introduction:

At the cornerstone of the electronics industry is a processing science dedicated to the fabrication of wafer-based materials and interfaces with well-defined properties situated at well-defined locations. This industry is now facing the challenges and opportunities associated with defining features on nanometer length-scales. Current methods are proving difficult and cost-prohibitive at sub-50nm length-scales. In contrast, low-cost self-assembly processes have proved quite effective in the formation of substrate-supported nanostructures with arbitrarily small dimensions, but where their accurate placement has proved exceedingly difficult. By combining templated assembly routes with three-dimensional surface diffusion, heteroepitaxy and wet chemistry techniques the research effort is establishing an economical processing science capable of yielding well-ordered arrays of intricate nanostructures.

Lab News:

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March 14^th 2012: Central Bucks High School-West student Matt Ernst wins first place in his category at the Bucks County Science Fair for his project on the fabrication of substrate-based gold nanowires using colloidal chemistry. He now advances to the Delaware Valley Science Fair at the Greater Philadelphia Convention Center.

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February 29th 2012: Ph.D. candidate Aarthi Sundar presents her research at Temple University during National Engineers Week.

February 25^th 2012: Central Bucks High School-West student Matt Ernst wins first place in his category and top score for his high school at the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (PJAS)Regional Competition for his project on the fabrication of gold nanowires using colloidal chemistry. He now advances to the state competition at Penn State.

February 18^th 2012: Ph.D. candidate Aarthi Sundar and Undergraduate summer intern Chris Decker have their paper “The Templated Assembly of Highly Faceted Three-Dimensional Gold Microstructures into Periodic Arrays” accepted to Material Letters.

December 12^th 2011: Ph.D. candidate Aarthi Sundar has her paper “Manipulating the Size Distribution of Supported Gold Nanostructures” accepted to Applied Physics Letters.

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October 29^th 2011: Undergraduate summer intern Chris Decker presents his NSF NUE sponsored research project at the ASEE conference.

Contact:

Robert Hughes
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Room #601
College of Engineering
Temple University
1947 N. 12th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122-6077

Phone: 215-204-3774
Email: hughesr@temple.edu