BSC Faculty Attend “Hands-On”
Nanofabrication Workshop
at Penn State University

 

(Bluefield)— Two Bluefield State College educators participated in a three-day nanofabrication workshop, designed to explore the world of nanotechnology, the engineering of functional systems at a molecular scale. Bluefield State College (BSC) Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Technology Andrew Kulchar and CART, Inc at BSC, vice president, operations Bruce Mutter learned about the growing applications of nanotechnology in many industries including the biotechnology, MEMS, optoelectronics, chemical, and nano-electronics industries. The basics of nanofabrication processes and tools were demonstrated and emphasized through processing labs held in the class 10 clean rooms of the Penn State Nanofabrication Facility. “This workshop was broken down into daily morning lectures by nationally recognized Penn State researchers and engineering staff and into afternoon lab sessions in nanofabrication,” Mutter noted.

The Penn State Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization (CNEU) is the home of the Pennsylvania Nanofabrication Manufacturing Technology (NMT) Partnership and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Center for Nanofabrication Manufacturing Education, an NSF-sponsored regional Advanced Technology Education (ATE) Center. It is also the Penn State home of the NSF National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), the national NSF nanotechnology resource for enabling academic and industry R&D. The CNEU is dedicated to research, development, and education across all aspects of micro- and nanotechnology. The Center resources are focused on addressing the incorporation of nanotechnology into K-12 education, into post-secondary education, and into industry applications.

“The prefix ‘Nano-‘ in the words Nanofabrication and Nanotechnology comes from the word nanometer (nm) which is the term for one billionth of a meter,” Mutter added. “Hence, the words refer to making and using ‘things’ that are in this nanometer size range. In its broadest usage, the term nanotechnology covers making structures in the range of 1 nm to 100 nm. These are truly the smallest sizes as can be realized by noting that something one nanometer in length is only about five atoms long.”

Nanofabrication and nanotechnology are engineering at the atomic length scale - a size range which until recently was only available to nature. Being able to engineer such small things opens the door to a multitude of new opportunities. These include making extremely fine diameter but incredibly strong fibers atom by atom, making extremely small probes that can look at individual strands of DNA for uses such as disease detection, and making man-made capillary systems to bring nutrients to man-made replacement organs.

“You begin to realize that to finally be useful, all of these nano-engineered ‘promising objects’ have to be macro-engineered into real systems,” Mutter stated. “For example, the atomic level fibers have to ultimately be assembled into materials that allow for the creation of structural members of incredible strength and practical application, such as an armored textile, or even a better car wax, or that the molecular transistors have to be assembled into an actual circuits allowing the creation of computers of incredible speed and memory capacity for use in unmanned systems.”  “An application of these “nano- principles leading to more efficient battery power or smaller embedded circuits or computing systems most directly benefit our work at CART – but application is always the key for a College like ours,” he concluded.

May 24, 2007

School of Engineering Technology & Computer Science