A device made of bilayer graphene, an atomically thin hexagonal arrangement of carbon atoms, provides experimental proof of the ability to control the momentum of electrons and offers a path to electronics that could require less energy and give off less heat than standard silicon-based transistors. It is one step forward in a new field of physics called valleytronics.
A method to rotate single particles, cells or organisms using acoustic waves in a microfluidic device will allow researchers to take three dimensional images with only a cell phone.
The development of a reusable microfluidic device for sorting and manipulating cells and other micro/nano meter scale objects will make biomedical diagnosis of diseases cheaper and more convenient in regions where medical facilities are sparse or cost is prohibitive. Researchers at Penn State have recently filed a patent to develop such a device.
Commercially available cell sorters can rapidly and accurately aid medical diagnosis and biological research, but they are large and expensive, present a biohazard and may damage cells. Now a team of researchers has developed a cell sorter based on acoustic waves that can compete with existing fluorescence-activated cell sorters and is an inexpensive lab on a chip.
Students in this semester's Electrical Engineering 441 course are getting hands-on classroom instruction in the newly constructed Nanofabrication Laboratory.
A handheld, ultra-portable device that can recognize and immediately report on a wide variety of environmental or medical compounds may eventually be possible, using a method that incorporates a mixture of biologically tagged nanowires onto integrated circuit chips, according to Penn State researchers.
In addition to supporting cutting-edge research, Penn State's Nanofabrication Facility is training the workforce of the future.
There is no other facility of this caliber in Pennsylvania, and there are only a
handful in the country," says Stephen Fonash, director of the Penn State Nanofabrication Facility.
In fact, the NanoFab is a member of the National Nanofabrication Users Network, funded by the National Science Foundation for the support of academic and industrial research and development nation-wide. The other NNUN facilities are located at Cornell, Stanford, Howard University, and the University of California at Santa Barbara.
