Mesoscale Engineering Laboratory

Study electronic and optical phenomena in mesoscales systems to design and synthesize self-assembled (nanoscale) materials and structures for applications in molecular medicine and electronics. The systems we study are both physical and biophysical.

Research Projects:

1. Electronic Skin: Using tunneling phenomena, we are developing an ~100 nm thin film nanodevice that converts applied pressure to light and electric current. The spatial resolution that images stress is 100-fold better than the current state of the art devices. These devices have pressure sensitivity and resolution to sense texture on a level comparable to a human finger.

2. Electronics on Bacterium: Using the highly specialized structure of bacterium surface and the physiology of a specified microorganism, we are building an active electronic device made of nanoparticles and nanorods piggybacked on the organism. We have demonstrated our approach and built a humidity sensor with a 10-fold greater sensitivity than current microelectronic devices.

3. DNA and Protein Chip: Using the fundamental principles of optics, we are developing a novel chip that probes DNA and protein without using any labels. The uniqueness of the design is that it is relatively “blind” to non-specific binding and is quantitatively proportional to percent binding.

4. Dance of Ions at the Electrode: We have developed a special interferometer to measure ion motion close to the electrode within its ~3 nm thick electric double layer. The highly versatile apparatus is being used to study enzymatic binding reactions, redox processes and ions motion in confined media, i.e., nanopores.

5. Nanomaterials on DNA and Polymer Scaffold: Using DNA and polymers as scaffold we are exploring the construction of long, continuous, electrically conducting nano-wires to use in single electron nanodevices that can easily be wired to form logic circuits.