and Nanophotonics

From the tiniest Little things are becoming big things at Purdue University.

of building blocks, By making Nanotechnologies and Nanophotonics (NANO) nanotechnologies one of its eight signature areas for research and technology development, Purdue is essentially making a big deal out and nanophotonics of almost nothing. It’s a big deal to E. Dan Hirleman, too.

will claim a lion’s “Machines, from agricultural machines to air conditioners to share of Purdue’s cars and airplanes to heart pumps, have improved the quality of life for essentially all humanity,” says Hirleman, the William cross-disciplinary E. and Florence E. Perry Head of Mechanical and research efforts. co-chair of the search committee charged with identifying and attracting talented nanoresearchers to Purdue.

“, or the growing ability to precisely manipulate matter and energy at molecular scales, will enable better to design better machines and also allow us to build better machines through better materials and more functionality,” Hirleman continues. “Some of the machines will be nanomachines or nanobots, others will be large machines scaled up from nanoscale devices and components.”

The university’s NANO initiative emphasizes interdisciplinary research among scientists and with a goal of developing transferable technology. In pursuing this vision, Purdue is making an unprecedented investment— approximately $100 million—in personnel, facilities, equipment, and programs.

6 Purdue’s Engineering Edge Eight Signature Areas • Infinite Possibilities 7 Nanotechnology and Nanophotonics

The crown jewel among the facilities is the Birck Nanotechnology Center (BNC), but it has plenty of company (see sidebar):

Finding Food Pathogens: • The Institute for Nanoelectronics and Rafael Gomez, a Ph.D. (INAC), which will be housed in the BNC, has a student in electrical and 10-year mission to develop molecular computing engineering devices en route to trillion-device integrated computer advised by Professor Rashid with intelligence, adaptability, and fault Bashir, detects dangerous tolerance for use by NASA in future space . microorganisms in food • The Network for Computational Nanotechnology, with a microchip. sponsored by the National Science Foundation and centered at Purdue, will address key challenges to building integrated nanosystems by linking theory, modeling, simulation, and computation with experimental work. New computational tools will be shared with the research community through a unique web-based computing .

• The Center for Sensing Science and Technology, supported by the U.S. Department of Defense, focuses on research and development in the detection of chemical and biological agents and explosives, as well as homeland and military installation security.

“Precise and fast manipulation of matter and energy at the molecular scale requires tools and facilities that are very continued on page 11

8 Purdue’s Engineering Edge Eight Signature Areas • Infinite Possibilities 9 Nanotechnology and Nanophotonics

Birck Nanotechnology Center

Purdue’s nanotechnology initiative involves making large investments of people and resources to develop small-scale technology. A number of nano-related initiatives are already operating, and others are on the drawing board. The shining star of Purdue’s nano thrust, however, is the Birck Nanotechnology Center (BNC).

Scheduled to open in 2005, the $54 million BNC will integrate Purdue’s research and technology transfer efforts in nanoscale science and engineering.

“Nanotechnology requires the cooperation of researchers from a wide range of disciplines,” says Richard Schwartz, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-director of the center. “The Birck Center will provide a place where they can interact and cooperatively use the rather expensive equipment needed for this work.”

The center will not lack for space—it will occupy about 187,000 square feet in Purdue’s Discovery Park, a $100 million, 40-acre complex where three other major centers will stress interdisciplinary approaches to research and development.

According to Schwartz, researchers in the BNC will “bring specialized knowledge from their individual areas to a group effort to solve problems that lie at the intersection of a number of fields.” continued on page 10

Richard Schwartz

Nanotech Home: Scheduled to open in 2005, the $54 million Birck Nanotechnology Center will integrate Purdue’s research and technology transfer efforts in nanoscale science and engineering.

8 Purdue’s Engineering Edge Eight Signature Areas • Infinite Possibilities 9 Nanotechnology and Nanophotonics

Birck Nanotechnology Center continued

For example, researchers from and electrical and computer engineering will collaborate with researchers from biology and chemistry to develop electronic that can detect specific bacteria and viruses. This technology would have applications in medical diagnostics and bioterrorism detection and prevention.

Among the features of the center:

• Three levels of clean rooms (Class 10, Class 100, and Class 1000) for research that demands freedom from airborne particles;

• Biology and chemistry labs to prepare, handle, and process chemicals, molecules, and biological agents for use by nanoscale researchers;

• Epitaxial growth labs for the development of crystals using techniques such as molecular beam epitaxy and chemical vapor deposition;

• Measurement and characterization labs (including low-vibration rooms) for precise measurements of nanoscale materials; and

• Office space for faculty, postdocs, and graduate students from various disciplines across campus.

Moreover, the center will serve as a “nanotechnology incubator”—a base for technology transfer outreach.

“One of the purposes of Discovery Park and hence of the Birck Center is to speed the commercial- ization and application of the discoveries from our academic research laboratories,” Schwartz says.

“Industrial partners are interested because of the access Discovery Park provides to a wide range of experts and the ideas generated in their research. They can support us by providing financial support for the research, by providing insight as to where there may be commercial applications of our discoveries and ideas, and by carrying the developments to commercial viability.”

The interdisciplinary scope of the center is extensive—bringing together aeronautical, agricultural, biomedical, chemical, electrical, industrial, materials, and mechanical engineers with scientists from biology, chemistry, , and as well as researchers from agriculture, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine. Altogether, nearly 100 Purdue faculty from 25 different departments will join efforts.

“The time has come for us to break through departmental and discipline barriers to attack problems that will yield only to multidisciplinary efforts,” Schwartz says. “The Birck Center will be a place for this to occur.”

10 Purdue’s Engineering Edge Eight Signature Areas • Infinite Possibilities 11 Nanotechnology and Nanophotonics

different from those we needed in the past,” says Hirleman. “For example, an invisible 50-nanometer diameter dust particle is a mere annoyance in manufacturing an airplane, but it becomes a cold-blooded killer in a nanomanufacturing process. It is relatively easy to make quality control dimensional measurements on car doors, but nanometrology is a different game altogether.

“So nanotechnology research and education require vastly different laboratories and equipment.”

On the people side, Purdue is looking for experts in nanomaterials; nanoscale metrology and sensors; nanodevices for biological, electrical, mechanical, photonic, and hybrid systems, including low-dimensional quantum and molecular-scale devices; nanophotonics; and design, manufacture, and integration of nanoscale devices and systems.

“Essentially every university in the world is trying to work in the nanotechnology area,” Hirleman says. “We need to carefully define our niche and build on High-speed Delivery: our success. We need people, faculty, Shuiqing Hu, a mechanical and students who see the big picture engineering Ph.D. student, across all length scales at once. They works with Professor Arvind also need to understand that their Raman on developing novel niche is just one of many that has to be integrated into a techniques for the high-speed whole with all the give and take of the design process.” measurement of nanoscale Purdue will distinguish itself in the crowded nanotech mechanical properties of field by: materials such as thin films, and biological membranes and cells. • Focusing on nanosystems integration and the Researchers rely on atomic force conversion of nanoscience into nanotechnology; microscopy, a high precision • Emphasizing products and applications at the electromechanical tool for interface among biology, , nanoscale characterization of and nanotechnology; micron and submicron structures.

10 Purdue’s Engineering Edge Eight Signature Areas • Infinite Possibilities 11 Nanotechnology and Nanophotonics

• Building the most integrated interdisciplinary teams;

• Incorporating technology transfer, assessment, and marketing;

• Creating tight links between theory, modeling, simulation, and computation on one hand and experimental work on the other; and

• Developing the finest facilities to support research and technology transfer.

Purdue is hardly a newcomer to this new field, however. A number of faculty researchers from all along the spectrum of engineering disciplines are already at work on nanoscale research. Supriyo Datta and Mark Lundstrom, both from electrical and computer engineering, are teaming with colleagues in the Department of Computer Sciences to study electrical flow through molecules in hopes of developing more efficient computer chips. Two mechanical engineering professors, Suresh Garimella and Tim Fisher, are developing a technique that utilizes nanoscale emitters and microscale pumping structures to cool computer chips that generate very high heat fluxes and ensure their reliable performance.

On the health front, while working with researchers in the School of Agriculture, agricultural and ’s Michael Ladisch and , from electrical and Making Nanotubes: computer engineering, have combined and proteins Tim Fisher (right), a mechanical to make a biochip that can identify deadly bacteria in engineering professor, along food. Gil Lee, from , has used his with Matt Maschmann, a measurements of the forces inside and among molecules to Ph.D. student, is developing help design complex drugs with healthcare applications. techniques to grow and utilize Srinivasan Chandrasekar and Dale Compton, both carbon-based nanomaterials, professors from , have developed a such as carbon nanotubes, way to make nanocrystalline metals and alloys using waste to cool computer chips that material formed in conventional machining operations. generate very high heat fluxes, ensuring their Even such a small sampling of current projects demonstrates reliable performance. the interdisciplinary nature of nanotechnology research.

12 Purdue’s Engineering Edge Eight Signature Areas • Infinite Possibilities 13 Nanotechnology and Nanophotonics

“Major innovations and revolutionary advances almost always draw on knowledge or insight from a remote discipline applied to a current problem,” says Hirleman. “Nanotechnology—and technology advances resulting from it—share that characteristic.”

According to Hirleman, differences between mechanical, electrical, biological, and chemical processes that are clear at the macroscale become “artificial” at the scale of atoms and molecules.

Teams that design and manufacture complex engineered systems such as airplanes, hearing aids, or artificial hearts have always been interdisciplinary in their efforts to balance a cluster of factors such as structure, weight, user-friendliness, controls, aesthetics, biocompatibility, and acoustics.

“In the past it has been easier, though not necessarily advisable, to segregate the components into mechanical, electrical, etcetera, and not worry about the interactions until near the end of the design process,” Hirleman says. “But nanotechnology-enabled Material Findings: Deepak building block components will themselves be inherently Dinesh, a Ph.D. student in interdisciplinary. Hence, teams that design and manufacture industrial engineering advised systems will increasingly involve physicists, chemists, and by Professor Srinivasan biologists, along with engineers from the very beginning.” Chandrasekar, studies material characteristics of different As with its other signature areas, Purdue has high hopes manufacturing processes. and expectations for its leadership role in nanotechnology.

“Purdue’s goal is to focus on a few things and be the best in the world at those—to really make a difference,” says Hirleman.

“Picking those signature areas is hard because there are so many candidates. We’ve had to consider the expertise of the faculty we have, the possibility of adding new faculty, the needs and capabilities of Indiana industry, alumni interest, and the probability of finding large amounts of funding outside Indiana.

“In nanotechnology all of those factors lined up.”

12 Purdue’s Engineering Edge Eight Signature Areas • Infinite Possibilities 13