Research Nuggets

Nano Nuggets are brief synopses of our on-going research projects. We update them roughly twice a year to reflect progress. Click on the name of a nugget in the list below to download a PDF file with more information on each nugget.

  • Biochemical Sensor Tubing for Point-of-Care Monitoring of Intravenous Drug Infusion and Urinary Metabolites

    In medical facilities, there is strong motivation to develop detection systems that can provide continuous analysis of fluids in medical tubing used to either deliver or remove fluids from a patient’s body to increase the safety of intravenous (IV) drug delivery and for point-of-care health monitoring.

  • Ionic Glass Stamps for Solid State Superionic Stamping of Metallic Nanostructures

    Stamping is an all solid-state approach to patterning of metallic (silver and copper) nanostructures. Our past work has focused on polycrystalline mixed conductors such as Ag2S and Cu2S. More recently, we have created stamps of glassy mixtures of silver iodide and silver metaphosphate (AgI-AgPO3).

  • MOCVD Growth of Multistack Compound Semiconductor Heterostructures and Nanomaterials for Printable Solar Cells, LEDs, & FETs

    Semiconductor Nanostructures for High Efficiency and Low Cost Solar Cells

  • Multiple Material Deposition with E-jet Printing

    Electrohydrodynamic jet (E-jet) printing is a nanomanufacturing process developed within the NanoCEMMS that uses electric field induced fluid jet printing to deliver ink to a substrate for high-resolution (< 10μm) patterning applications. Previous investigations have demonstrated a high precision and high rate printing process.

  • Nanometer Scale Reduction of Graphene Oxide

    We have developed a method for direct synthesis of high quality graphene nanoribbons using a heated probe tip. Graphene oxide undergoes a reduction when heated, forming graphene. In our work, we use the nanometer-scale temperature field in the vicinity of a heated cantilever probe tip to locally reduce graphene oxide.

  • Optofluidic Microchip with VCSELs and Edge Emitting Laser Sources

    Recently, optofluidic microchips enabled by the integration of microfluidic channels with vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) have been demonstrated for detection of fluids, cells, and particles. We have achieved the compact integration of high-power 780-nm VCSEL arrays and fiber pig-tailed edge emitter lasers with a microfluidic channel to form a biomedical analysis platform. 780 nm emitting VCSELs and fiber pigtailed edge emitting lasers are integrated for fluorescent measurements.

  • Patterning Hydrogel Substrates for Cell Culture with E-Jet Printing

    We developed a method to manufacture biologic cell culture platforms with precise and flexible control of substrate chemistry and stiffness through patterning with Electrohydrodynamic Jet (E-Jet) Printing. We have the capability to pattern both proteins and material stiffness at higher resolution, with more flexibility, and at lower cost as compared to other methods like microcontact printing.

  • Photonic Crystal Heterogeneously Bonded Membrane Emitters

    Photonic crystal membrane lasers have been a highly active research area since the first defect mode membrane laser was demonstrated. Here we report InGaAsP membranes are bonded to host substrates using post-processing Van der Waals bonding.