Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology Facilities

Dr. Dror Sarid. The Nanotechnology Facility is equipped with ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microsopes (STM), atomic force microscopes (AFM) and conducting-tip AFMs (TUNA). A recent donation by the Digital Instruments Division of Veeco Instruments will add another state-of-the-art research Atomic Force Microscope to the laboratory. The STM research consists of fabrication and characterization of semiconductor nanostructures. Current work concentrates on the initial growth of Ba and Sr layers on Si wafers aimed as templates for the growth of perovskite crystals to be used in future electronic devices. The AFM research involves (1) fabrication of semiconductor nanostructures and characterization of their topography, electric, and electronic properties, (2) investigation of the effects of charges and impurities in gate-oxide films, and (3) development of high-density, nanometer-scale data storage methods in oxide, nitride and other thin films.  Recent research includes combining the power of optical spectroscopy with the molecular resolution of the AFM to analyze and characterize the chemical nature of nanostructures.

Conducting Tip Atomic Force Microscopy

Dr. Dror Sarid. Research is being conducted on the fabrication and characterization of semiconductor nanostructures whose small size gives rise to quantum mechanical phenomena, on applications of nanotechnology to data storage, and on optical characterization with nanometer resolution.

Nanotechnology

Dr. Mahmoud Fallahi, Dr. Masud Mansuripur, and Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian. Photonic crystals are periodic dielectric media that exhibit a complete photonic band gap, prohibiting the propagation of light in one, two, or three dimensions over a finite frequency range. Applications of 2D nano-photonic crystal structures made of a triangular lattice of air holes in silicon are being explored theoretically and experimentally. E-beam lithography together with ECR-RIE etching are adopted for fabricating photonic crystals working in the near infrared regime. A custom-built blue laser writer (wavelength = 405 nm) and optical holography are also being employed to fabricate photonic crystals for longer light wavelengths.  This research is partially supported by TRIF, Arizona’s Technology & Research Initiative Funding enterprise:  http://www.optics.arizona.edu/TRIF.

Nano-biotechnology

Dr. Masud Mansuripur and Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian.  A nano-pore is a protein-based structure that can be created in a lipid membrane. The diameter of this pore (around 1-2 nm) is small enough to make it a sensitive detector for the passage of biological and other macro-molecules. We have fabricated micro-chambers in various glass and plastic media, embedded a proteinaceous nano-pore in the lipid wall that separates two adjacent chambers, and monitored the flow of electrolytic current across the membrane through this nano-pore. When DNA molecules are dissolved in one of the chambers, their passage through the pore modulates the electrolytic current in such a way as to make possible the identification of various base-sequences (composed of the familiar G, C, A, T nucleic acids) of the DNA molecule. This technology has many promising applications, including the storage of digital information in single macromolecular strands, detection of various chemical and biological agents, and implementation of massively parallel procedures for drug design and discovery.  This research is partially supported by TRIF, Arizona’s Technology & Research Initiative Funding enterprise:  http://www.optics.arizona.edu/TRIF.

Ultra High Vacuum Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Dr. Dror Sarid. Research centers on the fabrication, modification, and characterization of semiconductor structures with atomic resolution, with applications to novel memory devices.