#nanoscience
A selection of evaporation sources in our cleanroom. Evaporation is a thin film deposition technique where the material is heated up to above its melting point in vacuum, typically using an electron beam. The molten material evaporates and is redeposited on your samples which are positioned near the source. Common materials that can be deposited using this technique include gold, copper, titanium, platinum, nickel, iron, silicon dioxide, and carbon.
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Aluminum target for our sputter system. If you look closely you can see individual crystal grains.
Sputtering is a technique used to deposit thin films of material. The material source is called a target because it is bombarded with high energy atoms which remove bits of material that are then redeposited on your sample or wafer. The ring is a result of the magnetic field confining the plasma to that region.
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Discarded AFM tips.
Atomic Force Microscopy, or AFM, is a technique by which a small mechanical probe is scanned across a sample to create a height map. This technique has very high resolution, less than a nanometer, depending on what kind of tip is being used, and can be done in ambient conditions (no need for vacuum). AFM is useful for getting roughness data and measuring film thickness, and can be combined with other microscopy techniques to get a complete picture of your device.
AFM probes often get damaged or dirty, resulting in “tip graveyards” like the one shown here.
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Sample stage controls for an ion mill, allowing for rotation about two different axes.
Ion milling is a type of dry etch process used to remove parts of a sample by bombarding it with ions, typically argon, in a vacuum chamber. It can be thought of as an atomic sand blaster. Ions (the “grains of sand”) physically expel, or sputter, chunks of material from the surface. The sample is rotated to ensure uniform coverage.
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Kristen Fichthorn, Penn State Merrell Fenske Professor of Chemical Engineering, recently received the 2019 Nanoscale Science from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for her research on metal nanocrystal syntheses.
“It is a great honor to be recognized for this work, which has been made possible by continued support from the U.S. Department of Energy and the efforts of talented graduate students and postdocs here at Penn State,” said Fichthorn.
Read more about her research at Penn State News.
Magnetic Micro-Robots | Veritasium
Tiny robots activated by magnetic fields may be used in future biomedical procedures. Research Referenced in this video: T. Xu, J. Zhang, M. Salehizadeh, O. Onaizah and E. Diller, Millimeter-scale flexible robots with programmable three-dimensional magnetization and motions. Science Robotics. 4, eaav4494 (2019). http://robotics.sciencemag.org/lookup… H. Xie, M. Sun, X. Fan, Z. Lin, W. Chen, L. Wang, L. Dong, and Q. He, Reconfigurable magnetic microrobot swarm: Multimode transformation, locomotion, and manipulation. Science Robotics. 4, eaav8006 (2019). http://robotics.sciencemag.org/lookup… G. Hwang, A. J. Paula, E. E. Hunter, Y. Liu, A. Babeer, B. Karabucak, K Stebe, V. Kumar, E. Steager, and H. Koo, Catalytic antimicrobial robots for biofilm eradication. Science Robotics. 4, eeaw2388 (2019). http://robotics.sciencemag.org/lookup…
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