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The Nanoscope: Big News in Small Science

June Blooms with Awards!
 
Spring 2021 IEN Seed Grant Winners Announced
 
Three Interdisciplinary Projects to Receive IEN Technical Support & Facility Access
 
E-Beam Training at IEN  The Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology at Georgia Tech has announced the winners for the 2021 Spring Facility Seed Grants. The primary purpose of this program is to give first- or second-year graduate students in diverse disciplines working on original and un-funded research in micro- and nano-scale projects the opportunity to access the most advanced academic cleanroom space in the Southeast. In addition to accessing the high-level fabrication, lithography, and characterization tools in the labs, the awardees will have the opportunity to gain proficiency in cleanroom and tool methodology and access the consultation services provided by research staff members of the IEN.  Seed Grant awardees are also provided travel support to present their research at a scientific conference.

In addition to student research skill development, this bi-annual grant program gives faculty with novel research topics the ability to develop preliminary data to pursue follow-up funding sources. The Facility Seed Grant program is supported by the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SENIC), a member of the National Science Foundation’s National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI).

Since the start of the grant program in 2014,  sixty-eight projects  from ten different schools in Georgia Tech’s Colleges of Engineering and Science, as well as the Georgia Tech Research Institute and 3 other universities, have been seeded.

The 3 winning projects in this round were awarded IEN cleanroom and lab access time to be used over the next year. In keeping with the interdisciplinary mission of IEN, the projects that will be enabled by the grants include research in biodevice development, new methodologies for tissue imaging, and design of water filtration membranes.


The Spring 2021 IEN Facility Seed Grant Award Winners are:

Development of Lab-on-a-Chip Platform to Study the Extracellular Electron Transfer Processes
Student: Mourin Jarin | PI: Xing Xie | School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Correlative 3D Metabolic and Structural In Situ Imaging of Human Tissues
Student: Thomas Hu (ECE) | PI: Ahmet Coskun | Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Machine Learning-Assisted Design of Sustainable Nanofiltration Membranes
for Wastewater Resource Recovery

Student: Dylan Lambeth | PI: Yongsheng Chen | School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

- Christa M. Ernst


The Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SENIC), a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), is funded by NSF Grant ECCS-2025462
 
NSF Names Georgia Tech Lead Institute of New Cross Disciplinary Center Focused on Integrated Photonics & Electronics: “Electronic-Photonic Integrated Circuits for Aerospace” (EPICA)

New IUCRC will Advance Communication & Sensing Technologies for Aerospace Applications

The Georgia Institute of Technology has been awarded funding to lead a new Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers Program (IUCRC) in Integrated Photonics. Integrated photonics have become a key enabling technology in many commercial, defense and scientific applications such as fiber communications, data centers, RF analog links, quantum computing, and communications and sensing. Aerospace and spaceborne applications of integrated photonics present many challenges for researchers resulting from the harsh environment, however they provide enormous opportunities for increasing performance while reducing size weight and power.

The EPICA IUCRC was first Photonic Chip from Lab of Professor Stephen Ralphproposed by faculty of the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), a center within the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN) at Georgia Tech. The GEDC is a cross-disciplinary research center focused on the development of high-speed electronic and photonics components and signal processing to achieve revolutionary system performance. With renowned expertise in advanced photonics and highspeed electronics research, more than 15 active faculty and over 100 graduate and undergraduate students, the team is poised for success.

EPICA’s founding recognizes Georgia Tech as the leader in photonic integrated circuits for aerospace and spaceborne applications. EPICA’s establishment will enable the next wave of communications and sensing technologies for a wide variety of platforms by designing solutions for advanced electronic-photonic integrated circuits and systems geared specifically for aerospace applications via validation of the performance and reliability of these systems in harsh environments.

EPICA at Georgia Tech is led by Professor Stephen Ralph, Director of GEDC, and includes research teams from the University of Central Florida and Vanderbilt University. Said Professor Ralph, “The success of the Georgia Electronic Design Center as a recognized leader in high-speed electronics and integrated photonics uniquely positioned Georgia Tech to create and lead the new NSF Center. Working with the teams at the University of Central Florida and Vanderbilt, as well as with the more than 20 semiconductor and photonics industry companies that are joining the center, we will solve the most challenging problems and help provide internet services around the planet, enhanced security by enabling robust systems for the DoD and improve environmental sensing of our atmosphere.”
 
  • Christa M. Ernst

For More Information on the Photonics Program Contact:

Maria Matheson [maria.matheson@ien.gatech.edu]
Program & Operations Manager
Georgia Electronic Design Center
Georgia Institute of Technology
C: 770-833-3029

Stephen Ralph [stephen.ralph@ece.gatech.edu]
Director, Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC)
Professor—School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
 
 
Khan Chosen for DARPA Young Faculty Award

Khan is receiving this award for his research on ferroelectric field-effect transistors for embedded non-volatile memory applications. Ferroelectric field-effect transistors is one of the most-promising device technologies for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) hardware, due to its energy efficiency and compatibility with high-volume semiconductor manufacturing. The project will focus on solving the critical voltage problem of this device technology, by identifying and implementing new strategies for interface defect reduction in and the downscaling of the ferroelectric gate-dielectric stack. 

Asif Khan GT ECE
Khan works on advanced semiconductor devices that will shape the future of computing in the post-scaling era. His research group currently focuses on ferroelectric devices in all aspects ranging from materials physics, growth, and electron microscopy to device fabrication, all the way to ferroelectric circuits and systems for AI/ML/data-centric applications.

Cleanroom Corner

Updates to Tool Access: Workflow Trainings

This month we are focusing on the different uses that our Cleanrooms are capable of, along with introducing Workflow trainings. We will begin with 3 workflow trainings that are targeted to give users access to several tools at once so they can take full advantage of the cleanrooms. The new trainings are detailed below:

Nano-Bio Workflow

Biocore T200 SPROur Nano-Bío orientation, will focus on the Biacore T200, a Ligand-Analyte analysis tool that can give us Kinetics, affinity, and specificity data on cellular interactions. We will be walking through a demo workflow where we characterize size of our analyte using the Zetasizer Nano ZS, run a sample assay using the Biacore T200, and also show researchers how to use the Htachi S3700N VP-SEM. The first Nano-Bio Training will be held in July 2021!


Nanoscrobe Expert Workflows
IENs iS50-FTIR spectrometer
The Nanoscribe Expert workflow will bring users in, show them how to use the NanoScribe Photonics Professional GT2. This training will walk users through how to post-process their prints using UV-Cures, Salinization, and lastly will be looking at our prints under the Olympus LEXT 3D-Profilometer located next to the Nanoscribe. After this training Researchers will have access to the Nanoscribe, MJB4 Mask aligner, and the Lext Laser 3D Profilometer. The First Nanoscribe Expert workflow will be held in June 2021!

Thermal Characterization Workflows

TA Q600 FurnaceThe Thermal Characterization workflow will be held once a month and teach users how to use 3 thermal characterization tools. The TA Q600 and TA Q200 will be used to study Tg, Tm, and Tc, and we will also use the TGA-IR to characterize any evolved gasses that come out of our samples while running the TGA workflow. Researchers will have access to the Q600, Q200, and FTIR after completion. The first Thermal Characterization workflow will be held in August 2021!


Of course, if you are in need of a specific tool, we will still have specific tool trainings available at all times through SUMS. We also plan to add a Micro-dispensing Workflow in the future, which will give users access to the MicroFab Inkjet Printer, Pix Dro Printer, and the Contact Angle Measurement system.

 

For more information, contact Philip Anschutz at: 
phil-a@gatech.edu 404.520.8289

Meet the Wireless Dream Team | ATHENA Lab

ATHENA Lab Team at TSRB

Research Overview

The ATHENA (Agile Technologies for High-performance Electromagnetic Novel Applications) group at Georgia Tech, led by Dr. Manos Tentzeris, explores advances and development of novel technologies for electromagnetic, wireless, RF and mm-wave applications in the telecom, defense, space, automotive and sensing areas.

The research activities of the team include Highly Integrated 3D RF Front-Ends for Convergent (Telecommunication,Computing and Entertainment) Applications, 3D Multilayer Packaging for RF and Wireless modules, Microwave MEM's, SOP-integrated antennas (ultrawideband, multiband, ultracompact) and antenna arrays using ceramic and conformal organic materials and Adaptive Numerical Electromagnetics (FDTD, MultiResolution Algorithms).

The group includes the RFID/Sensors subgroup which focuses on the development of paper-based RFID's and RFID-enabled "rugged" sensors with printed batteries and power-scavenging devices operating in a variety of frequency bands [13.56 MHz-60 GHz]. In addition, members of the group deal with Bio/RF applications (e.g. breast tumor detection), micromachining (e.g elevated patch antennas) and the development of novel electromagnetic simulator technologies and its applications to the design and optimization of modern RF/Microwave systems.

The numerical activity of the group primarily includes the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) and multiresolution time-domain (MRTD) simulation techniques. It also covers hybrid numerical simulators capable of modeling multiple physical effects, such as electromagnetics and mechanical motion in MEMS devices and the combined effect of thermal, semiconductor electron transport, and electromagnetics for RF modules containing solid state devices.

The group maintains a 32 processor Linux Beowulf cluster to run its optimized parallel electromagnetic codes. In addition, the group uses these codes to develop novel microwave devices and ultracompact multiband antennas in a number of substrates and utilizes multilayer technology to miniaturize the size and maximize performance. Examples of target applications include cellular telephony (3G/4G), WiFi, WiMAX, Zigbee and Bluetooth, RFID ISO/EPC_Gen2, LMDS, radar, space applications, millimeter-wave sensors and surveillance devices and emerging standards for frequencies from 800MHz to 100GHz.


Lab PI: Emmanouil M Tentzeris | Professor ; Ken Byers Professor in Flexible Electronics, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Emmanouil M Tentzeris Professor ; Ken Byers Professor in Flexible Electronics Professor Emmanouil (Manos) M. Tentzeris was born and grew up in Piraeus,Greece. He graduated from Ionidios Model School of Piraeus in 1987 and received the Diploma (Suma Cum Laude) from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece in 1992 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering andComputer Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1993 and1998, respectively.

Manos joined the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1998
.

Current Lab Sponsors
  • NSF
  • NASA
  • DARPA
  • Other industry support for advanced RFID & wireless technology.
liquid cooling

Recent Research News from ATHENA
 

Leveraging the 5G Network to Wirelessly Power IoT Devices


Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have uncovered an innovative way to tap into the over-capacity of 5G networks, turning them into “a wireless power grid” for powering Internet of Things (IoT) devices that today need batteries to operate.

The Georgia Tech inventors have developed a flexible Rotman lens-based rectifying antenna (rectenna) system capable, for the first time, of millimeter-wave harvesting in the 28-GHz band. (The Rotman lens is key for beamforming networks and is frequently used in radar surveillance systems to see targets in multiple directions without physically moving the antenna system.)

But to harvest enough power to supply low-power devices at long ranges, large aperture antennas are required. The problem with large antennas is they have a narrowing field of view. This limitation prevents their operation if the antenna is widely dispersed from a 5G base station. 

“We’ve solved the problem of only being able to look from one direction with a system that has a wide angle of coverage,” said senior researcher Aline Eid in the ATHENA lab, established in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering to advance and develop novel technologies for electromagnetic, wireless, RF, millimeter-wave, and sub-terahertz applications.

The FCC has authorized 5G to focalize power much more densely compared with  previous generations of cellular networks. While today’s 5G was built for high-bandwidth communication, the high-frequency network holds rich opportunity to “harvest” unused power that would otherwise be wasted.

Read the Full Press Here

These findings were reported in the Jan.12 issue of the journal Scientific Reports.
NNCI Lecture Graphic

A case study of essential physics and technology challenges as revealed trough modeling: quantum-corrected semiclassical Monte Carlo scaling study of Si, Ge, and InGaAs FinFETs

Prof. Leonard F. Register | Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin


Abstract: This presentation will address material options, channel orientations, contact geometries, and the effects of scaling on n-channel FinFETs. However, the emphasize will be on the role and requirements of modeling and what we can learn from it in a complex system as much or more so than the system itself.  How prior knowledge of possible essential physics in the system(s) of interest informs the model choice—a quantum-corrected semiclassical Monte Carlo method in this case—and how the model integrates that essential physics to produce perhaps unexpected results will be considered. Here, the systems include Si, Ge, and Ino.53GaAsO.47 n-channel FinFETs; <110> and <100> channel orientations; saddle/slot, raised source and drain, and reference end-contact geometries; and channel lengths (widths) from 18 (6) nm to 9 (3) nm are considered. Essential physics includes quasi-ballistic transport; multiple effects of quantum confinement in the channel including carrier redistribution in the channel, degeneracy breaking among energy valleys, and increases scattering rates; source and drain doping limitations; and limitations on specific contact resistivities.
 
June 23, 2021 | 4PM - 5PM EDT | Access the Event @

https://tinyurl.com/NNCIseminarRegister
 

 
Quantum Computing with Microwaves


Joseph Bardin | Professor; Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Massachusetts Amherst

June 30, 2021 | 11:00AM EDT


Abstract: Quantum computing offers the potential for an exponential speed-up of certain classes of computational problems, and, as such, the development of a practical quantum computer has been a field of intense research over the past two decades. Yet, it is still early in the development of these systems, as we have just reached the point at which laboratory experiments have shown that quantum computers can outperform classical computers at certain computational tasks. As such, it is an exciting time in the field, analogous to the early days of classical computer development. As microwave engineers there is a tremendous opportunity to contribute to the field, since the control and measurement of most quantum processors is carried-out using microwave techniques. In this talk, I will describe the use of microwaves in quantum computing, with a focus on the superconducting qubit technology which was used to show that a quantum computer is capable of post-classical computation. The talk will be geared toward microwave engineers who may have no background in quantum computing, and it will provide a glimpse into the fundamentals, contemporary system architectures, recent experiments, and, finally, major microwave challenges–including packaging–that must be overcome if fault tolerant quantum computing is to become a reality.
 
 

Please Register In Advance at:
https://tinyurl.com/GTPRCvdlJBardin

 
SENIC Facility User Interview: ResonanceDx
 
ResonanceDx, Inc. is an early-stage medical diagnostic start-up and is commercializing rapid easy to use diagnostic tests based on antibody-antigen reactions that are quantified via wafer fabricated acoustic resonating sensors. John Ashley, the CEO, shares his perspective on the value of GT - SENIC user facility to his company.

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