Odor detection with high reliability and selectivity is important for many fields, including defense, homeland security, clinical diagnosis. Current generation gas sensors suffer from poor selectivity and reliability. This has been a bottleneck in the development of a versatile odor detector. Our research focuses on the development of new gas sensor technologies based on electron tunneling spectroscopy. This process involves development of ultrathin film stacks of metals and insulators with very smooth interfaces. Our technology showed room temperature high selectivity gas sensing with ppm sensitivity.
World's energy requirements are growing to sustain the economic growth achieved during last century. World' energy demand will be doubled by 2050 (conservative estimates) and current sources of energy cannot support this demand. Therefore mankind started searching for the alternative sources of energy. So far, solar energy is most promising alternative energy source that can meet new energy demands without degrading environment.
Our research is focused on the development of new materials and structures for cost-effective photovoltaics. Current generation photovoltaic structures use significant amount of crystalline silicon, which is expensive. Nanoscale materials laboratory is developing nanocrystalline silicon thin films for photovoltaic applications. Nanocrystalline Silicon can absorb light much more efficiently, compared to crystalline silicon and therefore require a fraction of silicon, compared to conventional solar cells. Also, Nanocrystalline Si can potentially be deposited on flexible surfaces (you can wear solar cells, one day!).
Electron Beam lithography is used to create nanostructures with about 50 nm features. these nanostructures are used to attach DNA molecules for bio sensing applications.