2011 Technogenesis Projects - Engineering

Large-area 3-D Nanopatterning and Nanostructure Fabrication

As scientific quests and engineering applications reach down to a nanometer scale, there is a strong need to fabricate nanostructures with good regularity and controllability of their pattern, size, and shape. In many applications, furthermore, the nanostructures are not useful unless they cover a relatively large area and the manufacturing cost is within an acceptable range. While several nanoscale patterning techniques are available, it should be noted that serial lithography methods do not cover a large area needed for non-electronic applications. Other non-lithographic methods, for example, the use of nanotemplates or the direct growth of nanoscale structures do not provide good regularity over a large area. One of our research interests is to develop a simple but efficient nanofabrication method with superior control of pattern regularity, size, and shape over a large area, which will open new application possibilities in many scientific and engineering domains.

Advisor: Prof. Chang-Hwan Choi
Chang-Hwan.Choi@stevens.edu
Ext: 5579

Multifunctional Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Nature such as plants, insects, and marine animals uses micro- and nano-textured surfaces in their components (e.g., leaves, wings, eyes, legs, and skins) for multi-purposes such as self-cleanness. Such multi-functional surface properties are attributed to the 3-D surface structures. Especially, hydrophobic surface structures create a composite interface with liquid by retaining air between the structures, minimizing the contact area with liquid. Such non-wetting surface property, so-called superhydrophobicity, can offer numerous application potentials including anti-fogging, anti-snow adhesion, anti-frosting, anti-corrosion, low flow-friction, and anti-biofouling. One of our research interests is to develop multi-functional superhydrophobic surfaces of optimized de-wetting stability and adaptive self-healing capability for various applications.

Advisor: Prof. Chang-Hwan Choi
Chang-Hwan.Choi@stevens.edu
Ext: 5579

Microfluidic Self-assembly of Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials are promising building blocks for novel nanostructures and nanodevices. However, practical applications require precise arrangement of nanomaterials into hierarchical orders to construct desired geometry with controllable shape, location and direction on a large scale. Although several strategies had been explored for the controlled placement of nanoscale building blocks, t he development of more efficient techniques is still essential to achieve well-ordered high-throughput nanoassembly. One of our research interests is to develop a simple and efficient nanoassembly mechanism based on various microfluidic techniques to result in site-specific self-assembly of nanomaterials.

Advisor: Prof. Chang-Hwan Choi
Chang-Hwan.Choi@stevens.edu
Ext: 5579

Nanofluidic Energy Harvesting

This project is to develop a novel power generation device, utilizing a nanofluidic platform containing nanoenergetic materials, which are extremely mass-efficient in storing chemical energy. The stored chemical energy can be released rapidly, generating heat and pressure as a stimulus exists. These released energies need to be transformed to electricity and ultimately stored in energy storage devices, which can be used to power sensors, switches and fuzes. The technology will transform the energy created by energetic materials into electrical energy by using a nanofluidic system.

Advisor: Prof. Chang-Hwan Choi
Chang-Hwan.Choi@stevens.edu
Ext: 5579

Optofluidic Waveguide and Sensor

Most optical systems are made with solid materials such as glasses, metals, and semiconductors. However, there are cases in which it will be advantageous to use fluids for optical systems. Whereas microfluidics has made it possible to integrate multiple fluidic tasks on a chip, most optical components, such as the light source, sensors, lenses, and waveguides, remained off the chip. In recent development of optofluidic integration, optics and microfluidics are combined on the same chip by building the optics out of the same fluidic toolkit. The advantage of optofluidics lies in the ease with which one can change the optical properties of the devices by manipulating fluids. The project is to study and develop new optofluidic waveguide architecture of liquid-core and air-cladding for multi-phase (liquid and gas) sensing with greater sensing efficiency.

Advisor: Prof. Chang-Hwan Choi
Chang-Hwan.Choi@stevens.edu
Ext: 5579

Nanoscale Interfacial Transport Phenomena

Fundamental scientific quests, which were unexplored before due to the lack of experimental precision, can now be explored with the recent development of nanotechnology. Especially, various interfacial phenomena at nanoscale can now be explored by using well-tailored nanomechanical properties of nanostructures. One of our research interests is to investigate the nanoscale interfacial phenomena including friction, adhesion, and fluid/thermal transport phenomena.

Advisor: Prof. Chang-Hwan Choi
Chang-Hwan.Choi@stevens.edu
Ext: 5579

Flexible Graphene Supercapacitors to Power Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The goal of this project is to design and demonstrate a thin flexible supercapacitor device that can be: (1) glued to the wings of an unmanned aerial vehicle as a light-weight, rapidly chargeable power storage source and (2) integrated with a commercially available flexible solar cell panel for auxiliary self-power generation. Unlike rechargeable lithium ion batteries, supercapacitors have long cycle life and can be rapidly charged and discharged in seconds as opposed to hours. This project is based on our recent discovery that graphene oxide nanosheets can be easily inkjet-printed and thermally reduced at a moderate temperature to produce flexible inkjet-printed graphene electrodes on plastic substrates. With its enormous high surface area and excellent electrical conductivity, graphene offers great promise of creating supercapacitors with unprecedented high specific power and energy density. We envision that our discovery will transform the way we develop an entirely new class of flexile supercapacitors for powering small electronic systems to electric vehicles. It is anticipated that several students can work together as a team this summer to demonstrate a remote-controlled toy airplane that is powered by our flexible supercapacitor. We are looking for 2 to 3 students in Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering.

Advisor: Prof. Woo Lee
Department of Chemical Engineering & Material Sciences
woo.lee@stevens.edu
Ext: 8307

Inkjet-Printed Micropatterns of Gold Nanoparticles for Late Stage Infection Prevention of Dental Implants

The goal of this project is to design, create, and evaluate inkjet-printed micropatterns of Ag and Au nanoparticles as a novel means of preventing late stage infection of dental implants. While the use of dental implants has significantly increased worldwide over the past decade, their bacterial infection has also skyrocketed. A clinical study in Europe shows that the infection rate is about 30% after 3 years of implantation. Infected implants cannot be treated by antibiotics due to the formation of antibiotic-resistant biofilms at the implant-bone-oral interface, and therefore must be surgically removed. Our approach to this problem is to print the micropatterns of gold nanoparticles on the surface area of implants that will come in contact with the bone/oral interface. We hypothesize that the areas patterned with gold nanoparticles could provide anti-biofilm function whereas unpatterned areas of TiAl6/V4 alloy could be used to promote strong new bond formation upon implantation surgery. We are looking for 1 student in Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or Chemical Biology. The student is expected to: (1) design and print micropatterns using a commercial inkjet printer operational in our laboratory and an ink that has been already formulated to contain gold nanoparticles in pure water and (2) ascertain the hypothesis by microfluidic bacteria and osteoblast culture experiments.

Advisor: Prof. Woo Lee
Department of Chemical Engineering & Material Sciences
woo.lee@stevens.edu
Ext: 8307

Wave Energy Conversion Research

Students are needed for wave energy conversion research at the Davidson Lab on Stevens' campus.

Students will participate in fundamental hydrodynamic research performed in the wave tank facility, and will process Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Stereo Camera data to calculate the wave power concentration capabilities of a fully submerged tension leg platform.

The selected candidate(s) will have strong math skills and familiarity with fluid mechanics. Other desired skills include CAD software (preferably Solidworks), data acquisition software (preferably Labview), and data logging and processing (MS Excel).

Advisor: Michael Raftery
mraftery@stevens.edu
Ext: 8704

Biorobotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery Lab

Help design, built and test robotic arms for robotic and minimally invasive surgery applications. Various projects are available in haptics (tactile feedback), image guided surgery, MEMS and use of lightweight structural materials in re-design of robotic arms. Also, application software development using National Instruments Robotics toolkit.

Advisor: Arthur B. Ritter, Ph.D.
Department of CCBBME (Biomedical Engineering)
Arthur.Ritter@stevens.edu
Ext: 8290

Davidson Lab/Naval/Ocean/Coastal Engineering

The Center for Maritime Systems at Davidson Laboratory is a nationally renowned research center conducting cutting edge research in the field of coastal, ocean and naval engineering. Potential technogenesis scholars having an interest in any of these disciplines are invited to apply. Specific research topics will be developed after consultation with individual students and will be based upon both their interests and current laboratory projects.

Advisors: Jon Miller/Raju Datla
jmiller@stevens.edu/rdatla@stevens.edu
Ext: 8591

High-speed GNR Photodetectors

We are experimentally realizing Tunable, high-speed GNR photodetectors based on edge-state determination/purification, High-throughput fabrication of antidot superlattices for graphene solar cells, Graphene Sagnac interferometer, Large-area graphene growth and transfer and 3-D CNT/graphene supercapacitor, Tunable wetting on smart polymer for liquid electronics and active antimicrobial surfaces, Graphene electrodes. We are looking for students who will perform mechanical exfoliation of graphene flakes by anodic bonding.

Advisor: EH Yang
Eui-hyeok.yang@stevens.edu
Ext: 5574

Micro Aerial Vehicles

This project is related to the design, build, and testing of a novel, low-cost, micro (0.5 meter scale) aerial vehicle robot platform. Duties will include component assembly, text fixture design and fabrication, and subsystem functional testing.

Advisor: Prof. Cappelleri
Office: EAS 208
David.Cappelleri@stevens.edu
Ext: 5072

Micromanipulation and Assembly

This project is related to automating manipulation and assembly of micro-scale parts. It includes the mechanical design and fabrication of fixtures, micro-scale parts, LabView Programming, and control system design.

Advisor: Prof. Cappelleri
Office: EAS 208
David. Cappelleri@stevens.edu
Ext: 5072

Nanostructures: Quantum Dots and Quantum Wires

This research is directed at determining the dynamics and energy spectra of electrons (and holes) in quantum dots and quantum wires, including the effects of a quantizing magnetic field. The materials to be studied will include normal semiconductor-based nanostructures (such as GaAs) and Graphene.

Advisor: Prof. Norman Horing
nhoring@stevens.edu
Ext: 5651

Medical Image Transition

Student will work under the direct supervision of a PhD student and will collaborate with industry experts and physicians at the Hackensack University Medical Center to improve the quality and capability of medical image transmission. This Department of Defense funded research project involves near real-time transmission of medical images for use by emergency personnel in civilian and combat emergency care. Specific tasks in this project will include the technical evaluation of the system by assessing and quantifying the image transmission time delay, image definition, and image skips or drop-outs. In doing so, a new quality standard of mobile image transmission will be defined.

The ideal candidate would be an undergraduate Biomedical Engineer with knowledge of wireless networks and image processing. Three positions are available.

Advisor: Dr. Vikki Hazelwood, Biomedical Engineering
vhazelwo@stevens.edu
Ext: 5051