Upon joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1990, Dr. Robertson established the Center for Materials Research and Analysis Central Facility for Electron Microscopy, which he now guides as a core facility for materials and nanotechnology resaerch at UNL. Dr. Robertson specializes in research, education, and applications of new and existing engineering materials and collaborates with researchers and educators across various science and engineering disciplines at UNL. Elsewhere in the US, Canada, and Europe, Dr. Robertson chairs the Engineering Ph.D. graduate program in materials. He has 66 technical publications, 46 of them refereed, and 2 patents.
The research program is directed toward magnetic and electronic thin films, nanoscale wires and devices, and electron probe-based characterization and fabrication for materials research and processing. Current funding comes from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, NASA, and the State of Nebraska. This funding supports work on semiconducting boron carbide materials and devices for spintronics and solid state neutron detection, on electron beam induced deposition of nanoscale materials and devices, and on characterization of novel magnetic materials.
Lunca-Popa, P., Brand, J.I., Balaz, S., Rosa, L.G., Boag, N.M., Bai, M., Robertson, B.W. and Dowben, P.A., "Evidence for Multiple Polytypes of Semiconducting Boron Carbide (C2B10) from Electronic Structure," Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 38, pp. 1248-1252, 2005.
Bernard, L., Monson, J., Sokolov, A., Liu, Z.Y., Yang, C.S., Dowben, P.A., Doudin, B., Harken, A., Welsch, P. and Robertson, B.W., "Magnetoresistance in Boron Carbide Junctions," Applied Physics Letters, 83, pp. 3743-3745, 2003.
Wei, Q. and Robertson, B.W., "Thermodynamic Determination of the Cation Distribution in NixMnl-g-xFe2+gO4 Ferrites," Journal of Solid State Chemistry, 176, pp. 279-283, 2003.
Robertson, B.W., Adenwalla, S., Harken, A., Welsch, P., Brand, J.I., Dowben, P.A., and Claassen, J.P., "A Class of Boron-Rich Solid-State Neutron Detectors," Applied Physics Letters, 80, pp. 3644-3646, 2002.
Adenwalla, S., Welsch, P., Harken, A., Brand, J.I., Sezer, A. and Robertson, B.W., "High Temperature Boron Carbide / n-Silicon Carbide Heterojunction Diodes," Applied Physics Letters, 79, pp. 4357-4359, 2001.
Jiang, H., Borca, C.N., Xu, B. and Robertson, B.W., "Fabrication of 2- and 3-Dimensional Nanostructures," International Journal of Modern Physics B, Vol. 15, Nos. 24 & 25, pp. 3207-3213, 2001.
Gobulukoglu, I. and Robertson, B.W., "In Situ STEM Technique for Characterization of Nanoscale Interconnects during Electromigration Testing", "Materials Reliability in Microelectronics IX", MRS Proceedings, Vol. 563, in press.
Gao, C., Robertson, B.W. and Shan, Z.S., "Magnetic Storage Media", in Encyclopedia of Electrical Engineering, John Wylie, NY, 1999, Volume 12, pp. 148-172.
Robertson, B.W. and Dowben, P.A., "Boron-Carbon Alloy Development for Use in High Temperature Devices and Sensors", in Proceedings of the 2nd European High Temperature Electronics Conference (HITEN 97), AEA Technology, Didcot, United Kingdom, 1998, 219-24.
Welipitiya, D., Waldfried, C., Borca, C.N., Dowben, P.A., Boag, N.M., Jiang, H., Gobulukoglu, I. and Robertson, B.W., "Adsorption of Nickelocene II: Decomposition and Selective Area Deposition", Surface Science, 418, 1998, 466-478.
Robertson, B.W., Jiang, H., Gobulukoglu, I. and Benninger, T.L., "Versatile Single-Step Fabrication of Submicron Structures", Technical Papers of the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME 1997, SME, 1997, pp 155-160.
Liu, Y., Sellmyer, D.J. and Robertson, B.W., "Co-Sm (-1100)[0001] // Cr (-12-1)[-101] Epitaxy and Its Effects on Magnetic Properties of Co-Sm//Cr", J. Appl. Phys., 79, 1996, 5333-5.
Welipitiya, D., Green, A., Woods, J.P., Dowben, P.A., Robertson, B.W., Byun, D. and Zhang, J., "Ultraviolet and Electron Radiation Induced Fragmentation of Adsorbed Ferrocene", J. Appl. Phys., 79, 1996, 8730-4.
Glass, Jr. J.A., Hwang, S.D., Datta, S., Robertson, B.W. and Spencer, J.T., "Chemical Vapor Deposition Precursor Chemistry. 5. The photolytic laser deposition of aluminum thin films by chemical vapor deposition," J. Phys. Chem. Solids., 57, 1996, 563-70.
