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Singh Center Initiatives
Initiatives
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Comprised of faculty researchers from the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, (SEAS), the Singh Center for Nanotechnology Internal Advisory Board provides feedback on the Center’s operations to ensure that the policies and procedures of the Center are well-aligned to the needs of the faculty. The additional purpose and goals of this committee are to opine on investment and resource allocation priorities within the Center to disseminate among the faculty about the facility to ensure transparency, and to address the future emphasis of our university-based nanotechnology center as we look forward to 2025 and beyond.
The current members of the Singh Center for Nanotechnology Internal Advisory Board:
Cherie Kagan Mark Allen
Igor Bargatin Robert Carpick Marija Drndic Liang Feng Deep Jariwala Dan Huh
Daeyeon Lee Tom Mallouk
Eric Stach
Node to Node Research Collaboration
The Quattrone Nanofabrication Facility, (QNF), continues to support and leverage the larger network of academic nanotech research communities to assist researchers, illustrated by the examples below.
We continue to collaborate in a long-term effort with University of Washington to fabricate specialized microfabricated TEM grids using TEOS & LPCVD silicon nitride in order to assist a small company that conducts research at both facilities.
QNF is currently performing remote DRIE processing for University of California, San Diego, (UCSD) on a critical project for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The project, “Fabrication of Starshade mask for detection of earth-like planet” is led by National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, (NNCI) node San Diego Nanotechnology Infrastructure, (SDNI) at UCSD.
In addition, we routinely send work to the Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility, (CNF), for process steps not available at QNF and for rapid backup services when tools at QNF are down.
The International Conference on Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication (EIPBN), affectionately known as "3-Beams," is the premier gathering of scientists and engineers who are dedicated to electron, ion, and photon lithography, imaging, and analysis; atomically precise fabrication; nanofabrication process technologies and related emerging technologies; and their applications in a broad spectrum of fields. In its 64th meeting, researchers from academia, government laboratories, and industry worldwide meet to present and discuss recent and future trends in these technologies.
Dr. Gerald Lopez, Director of Business Development at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, served as the EIPBN 2021 Conference Chair and President along with Mrs. Martha Sanchez (formerly of IBM), serving as EIPBN 2021 Program Chair and Vice President. As 2020 unfolded, planning efforts pivoted to virtual conference preparation. Even as vaccines and venues began to open as the conference date approached, the early decision to go virtual was evident with the many mandated travel restrictions still in place. Despite the unfounded challenges, under Dr. Lopez’s guidance, several records were broken in the conference's recent 10-year history, namely:
The Conference raised a record percentage of sponsorship, establishing solvency and profitability in a single year. Attendee registration spanned a new record of 30 countries.
Student registrations tripled by allowing student attendees to register for free.
According to Dr. Lopez, the most significant milestone was the appointment of Mrs. Aimee Bross Price, the first woman Conference Chair in the symposium's 60+ year history. She will oversee EIPBN 2024. Dr. Lopez served as her Steering Committee sponsor for the role.
With EIPBN on a virtual platform, the program optimized the interaction between attendees, presenters, and exhibitors/sponsors by scheduling its highly interactive events during the week of June 1-4, 2021.
Pre-recorded talks were released the week before the Conference so that their consumption occurred asynchronously and on-demand. All attendees can view talks until the end of 2021.
Next year, the 65th EIPBN will resume as a physical conference in New Orleans. While the pandemic uprooted many traditions, it brought about new modes of community engagement that it looks forward to incorporating for future symposia.
Meeting for Advanced E-Beam Lithography (MAEBL)
The Meeting for Advanced Electron Beam Lithography (MAEBL) is the professional networking platform and an educational provision of the electron beam lithography community. The community builds on engagement at planned workshops/meetings and information dissemination made possible the gracious support from our corporate sponsors.
Due to COVID-19, the fourth MAEBL meeting at Caltech on April 6-7, 2020, was canceled in early March 2020. The meeting transitioned online as a series of six, 2-hour, monthly meetings to continue networking and discussion among EBL owners and users globally. The first meeting, held on Thursday, July 23, 2020, had 51 participants spanning six countries: Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States. Roughly half of the participants were firsttime attendees. The meeting sponsors include JEOL USA, Raith, STS-Elionix, AllResist, DisChem, PBS&T, and GenISys.
Throughout the six months, rolling attendance continued to be around 35-50 people. Topics ranged from operational and supply chain hurdles brought by the pandemic to discussing common challenges faced typically by tool owners and EBL users alike. These include the discussion of negative resists, cold storage techniques, simulation/modeling, and anti-charging agents.
The advantages of going virtual were apparent in the first meeting. Aside from removing travel, room and board expenses, closing the gap between the geographically disparate group was the most significant key advantage. In particular, Australia and Saudi Arabia made connections with other attendees not routinely available. Interestingly enough, all six countries above were always represented in every meeting.
The monthly meetings also allowed for the testing of newer engagement technologies which proved extremely useful. The MAEBL Slack channel facilitated the conversation between sessions. In addition, the platform called GatherTown brought back the dynamic engagement commonly experienced at in-person meetings through the use of proximity video conferencing. Proximity video conferencing operates by representing a user as an avatar that can move across the screen on a map representing a room, auditorium, or any other venue. When two or more avatars get close to each other, the attendees’ video streams come into focus, allowing for immediate interaction. Others can join or leave the conversation as they would in the physical world by moving their avatar in proximity to groups of other avatars.
Despite the pandemic, MAEBL 2020 broadly opened access for those geographically limited to physical travel pre-pandemic. The apparent need by the community to maintain connections and to create new ones drove the meetings. With pandemic restrictions easing, MAEBL 2021 will convene as a physical meeting in November 2021.
Singh Center for Nanotechnology participation in NNCI Working Groups
The equipment maintenance and training working group is now known as the equipment maintenance working group since equipment training is being handled by another working group. SCN staff member Kyle Keenan has joined the group. Jeremy Clark at the NNCI node Cornell Nanoscale Facility, (CNF) has taken over as chair.
SCN staff member Eric Johnston continues to participate in the Training and Technical Content Development Working Group and has leveraged the work of this group to create video training content that has be found to be essential to assisting new users during the pandemic.
NNCI Photolithography Working Group
The NNCI Photolithography Working Group is composed of representatives from 12 NNCI sites, plus representatives from UC Berkeley, and is charged with sharing photolithographic techniques and processes with member sites and the larger research community.
The working group held a virtual meeting in August 2020, using a format similar to the previous years’ in-person meetings. Each site first presented a short overview of the operational status of their fabs and of any new equipment they have acquired. The discussion then turned to sharing ideas about conducting one of the more challenging professional roles that nanofabrication research staff had to face in the pandemic - how to safely train new users on the operation of the complex lithography tools in their labs.
Representatives from Cornell, Stanford and Penn described their efforts to create detailed equipment training videos for steppers and direct-writers, and other techniques to ensure that new researchers had been thoroughly prepared to use these tools with a minimum of close contact with others. Stanford volunteered to compile links of these training videos to help each site to use as-is or use as a template to develop their own. These video links were shared with the Training and Technical Content Development Working Group who have created a database of training materials for all types of cleanroom tools.
NNCI Vendor Relations Working Group
The Vendor Relations Working Group, led by Singh Center for Nanotechnology staff member, Charlie Veith, continued the processes started in 2019 to build a larger group with more points of contact at each lab based on their relations with the working group Building Size and Responsiveness.
A second goal is to communicate our existence to the suppliers as more suppliers leads to lower prices through competition, increase access to limited material stock and access to material we might not even know exists.
The final focus of the group is to improve communications between labs which can improve sustainability, efficiencies, and rapid increase in innovation.
The number of schools within the working group is now 12 with the addition of Minnesota, Stanford, University of California San Diego and Arizona State. There are currently 14 vendors providing special discounts to NNCI-affiliated universities. Current projects of the working group include:
• Discounted XeF2 savings.
• Washable face masks.
• Vacuum pumps savings between 20-50%.
• Valex joined as a lower cost supplier of high-quality stainless steel for gas systems.
• Garment cleaning service and improved safety systems for cleaning. This is an open invitation for labs to use during contract negotiation.
• Wipes, disinfectant and surgical masks.
Innovation Seed Grant Competition
Innovation Seed Grant Program
The Innovation Seed Grant Program is designed to encourage the region’s brightest minds to design or prototype innovative technology through the usage of nanotechnology related tools and equipment. Since 2016, the Singh Center for awards each group as much as $4000 to offset lab charges incurred in any of our three core facilities. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 Innovation Seed Grants were extended to June 30, 2021.
To date, the Singh Center for Nanotechnology has supported dozens of startup companies and corporate initiatives. Since NNCI year one, these companies have raised over $20 million in revenue, venture capital, grants, and awards. These figures clearly demonstrate the ability of the Singh Center for Nanotechnology startups to attract both private and public funding.
Company Pre-2019 2019 2020 2021 Grand Total
AAPlasma $ 149,949 $ 149,949
Avisi $ 225,000 $ 1,988,000 $ 2,213,000
Chromation $ 1,250,000 $ 1,250,000
Elektrofi $ 750,000 $ 750,000
Fermento $ 10,000 $ 10,000
Folia Water $ 225,000 $ 750,000
Goeppert $ 459,995 $ 755,000 $ 350,000
Graphwear $ 4,200,000 $ 975,000
$ 1,564,995
$ 4,200,000
Group K Diagnostics $ 2,000,000 $ 2,000,000
Iortha Mobile App $ 200,000
Nanograss Solar $ 400,000 $ 256,000
$ 656,000
$ 1,232,255
Xallent $ 1,714,495 $ 1,714,495
Wednesday Open Forum Process Sessions
Each Wednesday, staff members hold an open forum for users in the Singh Center for Nanotechnology community. The purpose of these events is to assemble Singh Center staff with researchers in an informal setting to provide solutions to fabrication problems ranging from simple devices to complex multi-level process integration issues. It also allows researchers with limited backgrounds in fabrication to learn how staff and their community peers design devices and work through the challenges of device fabrication.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Singh Center for Nanotechnology staff brought these forums online, serving several users at each session on Wednesdays.
The open forum was expanded in December 2020 to encourage new user research and it has since become a critical step in the user onboarding process. Each prospective user is required to submit a brief process description and flow. The purpose of this is to confirm that the work is feasible and if it can be completed onsite. If our tool set is not correct for their project, we endeavor to connect the user with other facilities that can help.
Since January 2021, we have helped 21 new users from Penn, 8 from Penn medical research, and 8 from other academic institutions with this program.
Singh Center for Nanotechnology Staff Conference and Panel Leadership
Our staff members continue to be active in contributing to local and nation technical conferences and panels. Below is a list of highlights of these activities.
Professor Mark Allen Director of the Singh Center for Nanotechnology
• Conference Chair of the 2021 IEEE Power Supply on a Chip Workshop (PwrSoC).
Gerald Lopez Director of Business Development
• Conference Chair of the 2021 Electron, Ion, and Photon Beam and Nanofabrication Conference (EIPBN or “3-beams” meeting)
Meredith Metzler Director of the Quattrone Nanofabrication Facility
• Member of the MEMS/NEMS technical group steering committee for AVS.
• Founded and coordinated the Mid-Atlantic Nanofabrication Manager’s Meetings
Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture – IoT4Ag
Researchers at Penn, Purdue, the University of California Merced, and the University of Florida have been recently awarded an National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center (ERC) grant to pursue the convergence of the Internet-of-Things and agriculture, (IoT4Ag). IoT4Ag Center Leadership includes the following Principal Investigators that are also users of the Singh Center for Nanotechnology site: Program Director, Professor Cherie Kagan; Site Director, Professor Kevin Turner; and University Education Director, Professor Sue Ann Bidstrup Allen.
The IoT4Ag headquarters is located in the Pennovation Works facility at the University of Pennsylvania, which blends offices, labs, and production space to host researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry partners that collaboratively will translate ideas and research into commercial products and ventures.
The mission of IoT4Ag is to Transform the Future of Agriculture by creating and translating to practice Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for precision agriculture and to train and educate a diverse workforce that will address the societal grand challenge of food, energy, and water security for decades to come. Nano-scale IoT will play critical roles in the three thrusts of the Center:
Thrust 1: Agricultural sensor systems will design and manufacture resilient, networked, intelligent sensorrobotic systems that monitor the state of plant and soil health over extended areas.
Thrust 2: Communication and energy systems will enable advanced approaches for powering IoT devices and robots in the field and for data communication from heterogeneous platforms of sensors, robots, and farming equipment.
Thrust 3: Agricultural response systems will create and deploy smart response systems that are driven by machine learning and decision-based models for precision agriculture.
The Singh Center for Nanotechnology, in collaboration with NNCI partners, the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, (CNF), the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor, (SENIC), the Nebraska Nanoscale Facility, (NNF), and the Kentucky Multiscale Manufacturing and Nanointegration Node (KY MMNIN), has established a research community focusing on Nano-Enabled Internet of Things (Nano-IoT).
Nano-IoT encompasses several of the themes of the NSF Ten Big Ideas, including: Future of Work, Growing Convergence Research, Understanding the Rules of Life, and Harnessing the Data Revolution. It is our conjecture that many devices and applications for the Internet of Things will be enabled by nanotechnology.
• The IoT ‘things’ may in many cases comprise small-scale structures, sensors, and actuators (MEMS) • The IoT ‘things’ may need to process and collect data, requiring on-board electronics • The IoT ‘things’ will need to communicate with the Internet, requiring communication protocols in multiple bands exploiting a diversity of modalities. Our vision is that the ubiquitous sensing potential of the Nano-Enabled Internet of Things (Nano-IoT) will:
• Provide the input necessary for data mining/big data processing to understand complex system behavior • Augment the interaction environment in future workplaces • Be the transducers that can monitor living things from agriculture to medicine • Catalyze the convergence of researchers from many intellectual backgrounds
Nano-IoT members will hold or participate in an annual, day-long symposium that will rotate among the community sites. The major goal of the symposium is to summarize, inform, and exchange the work of NNCI users. New ideas to be introduced through invited external speakers. The first symposium, hosted by the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, is scheduled for the fall of 2021.
Community College of Philadelphia
The primary goal from the Community College of Philadelphia, (CCP) and the Singh Center for Nanotechnology is to determine the best approach to provide academic instruction and nanotechnology opportunities to the CCP students. The most appropriate strategy for increasing these opportunities was determined to be:
a) creation of three new courses at CCP that are primarily nano-focused, or have significant nanotechnology-related content.
b) development of extracurricular programming at CCP and at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology that exposes students to content and careers in Nano.
c) discussion of the potential effectiveness of professional development workshops for CCP instructors on incorporating Nano into existing STEM courses.
d) creation of a paid internship program for CCP students. As partners, CCP and Penn meet regularly about these objectives.
Described below are brief updates for the activities that the CCP-PENN meetings have prioritized.
New Program: CCP Internship at Penn’s Singh Center The first cohort of CCP students (N=3) will start summer 2022 with a 20-hour/week, 14-week, paid internship at QNF. Program promotion will begin in the Fall 2021 semester in order to have the first cohort selected in March 2022.
Nano Courses at CCP
The Intro to Nano course was delayed until summer 2021 (Summer Session 1, May 17-June 30, 2021), which allowed the students to have a more hands-on, meaningful experience that would not have been possible in the Spring. QNF hosted the CCP Nano class on June 7 for a 3.5-h laboratory session that focused on deposition, lithography, and etching. CCP will promote the course with new and current CCP students and among CCP’s STEM faculty for the Nano course. The expectation is that it will take several years to build awareness of and demand for these courses, which will involve a more general campaign of creating awareness of nanotechnology and its relevance to other STEM disciplines and job pathways.
COURSE TITLE SEMESTER (STUDENT ENROLLMENT)
ASET 140 3d Printing-Additive Manufacturing F2019 (N=8), SU2020 (N=6), SP2021 (N=10)
ASET 201 Introduction to Nanotechnology SP2020 (N=8), SU2021 (N=6)
AET 101 Introduction to Robotics F2021*
ASET=Applied Science & Engineering Technology, AET = Applied Engineering Technology; Semesters: F=fall, Su=summer, Sp=spring; *enrollment ongoing or not started yet
Research Experience for Undergraduates - REU
Since 2016, the Singh Center for Nanotechnology has hosted 28 Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) students for a ten-week summer research program that provides hands-on laboratory instruction to broaden their academic experience. As with most university programs, the 2020 program was canceled due to pandemic guidelines.
The REU program was reinstituted in summer of 2021 as the domestic pandemic infection subsided and four students were selected to participate. In addition to lab instruction, the students had access to remote programming organized by other Penn Engineering REU programs. Students participated in weekly brown bag and lecture series, and completed assignments which led to a final oral presentation and written paper based on their research.
*2021 Summer REU research in D. Lee’s Lab accepted to a conference hosted by Council of Undergraduate Research (“CUR’s 2021 NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Symposium” scheduled for 10/25/21) and the Nano and Emerging Technologies Student Leaders Conference for Tech Connect World Innovation (Oct. 18-20, 2021).
NAME
Nyvia Lyles*
John Ting
Sejal Suri
Sarah Ziegler PROJECT (HOST LAB) HOME INSTITUTION
The Effects of Geometry and Voltage on the Howard University Temperature of the Microheater (D Lee)
Using Ferrodiodes to Build In-Memory Univ MD - College Park Computing and Neuromorphic Computing Technologies (D Jariwala) Transparent Ti3C2 MXene Microelectrodes University of DE for Multimodal Neural Recording (F Vitale) Understanding Nanoparticle Absorption on Vassar College Layer by Layer Films using AFM to Measure Interaction Forces (R Composto)
Penn Engineering Summer Academy Program: ESAP Nanotechnology
For three weeks in July, Penn Engineering hosts highly motivated and talented high school students worldwide to the Engineering Summer Academy at Penn, (ESAP). ESAP Nanotechnology is one of the six designed to introduce engineering to high school students and the only course provided this year among non-computer-related courses.
The Singh Center for Nanotechnology developed an online course that includes a total of 12 hands-on experiments and 10 lab demonstrations. In addition to the demos at the Center, many faculty labs (Olsson lab, Lee lab, Vitale lab, Bassett lab, and Yang lab) provided hands-on experiments and demos during the course.
Each student received a kit containing 80 items ($400/package estimated) which allowed them to participate in hands-on processing and analysis at home. Throughout the lab sessions, students learned about safe chemical handing, device fabrication and characterization, data processing, and Arduino coding. Lab-at-home experiments include cleanroom gowning and de-gowning, polarized light with magic sand, nanofabrication with PCB, gelatin microfluidics, printed circuit boards, syringe pump assembly and actuation, microfluidic device, solar cell, LED, and MEMS device characterizations. Labs at Singh and Labs at Penn includes demonstrations of micolithography, microfluidics, quantum dot synthesis, two-photon lithography, nanocharacterization instruments (AFM, FIB, TEM), photonics, microbubbles, MEMS devices, neural devices and hands-on origami.
To introduce the leading-edge research area in nanotechnology from different fields, faculty members (Drs. Mark Allen, Daeyeon Lee, Troy Olsson, Marc Miskin, Lee Bassett, Flavia Vitale, Jeffrey Babin, Eric Stach, Shu Yang, and Pat Watson) provided invited talks.
The students were provided with “taught engineering in the industry” seminars through a virtual tour and panel discussion with Dr. Sarah Hann and her colleagues at Dow Chemicals. Startup founders and engineers (Ms. Rui Jing Jiang and Ms. Georgia Griggs at Avisi tech and Dr. Sagar Yadavali at Infini-fluidics) shared their work experience with students to provide insight on working in startup companies.
NanoDay@Penn 2021
For the 2021 Nanoday workshop, the Singh Center for Nanotechnology pivoted to remote live-streamed presentations that were created and delivered by volunteers in various Penn labs, and by a group of Graduate Student Fellows, (GSFs) from the Quattrone Nanofabrication Facility. Organizers and presenters learned about scheduling/communication with teachers, different classroom technology platforms, student engagement levels and logistics of mailing pre-presentation materials.
A total of 17 presentations were delivered (teachers with multiple classes participated in more than one presentation). Students joined from in-person classrooms with their teachers while other classes’ students participated remotely from their homes.
LAB GROUP TOPIC(S) PI (volunteers)
Bargatin (7) Microwaves
Bassett (5) Light diffraction and phone screens
Detsi (2) Clean Energy: solar panels, wind
Fakhraai (4) Glasses
Murray Light-matter interactions with quantum dots (QDs) and films
Singh Center QNF (5) Nano around us & nano-fabrication
Graduate Student Fellows Program
In 2015, The Singh Center for Nanotechnology launched the Graduate Student Fellows (GSF) program to provide Penn Master’s students with hands-on nanofabrication experience in the cleanroom. Since the program began, a total of 71 awardees have been selected, based on their research interest and motivation. Previous nanofabrication expertise was not required or considered a factor in the application selection process.
Once pandemic safety guidelines were established at the Singh Center, 13 students were offered positions from July 2020 through the Spring 2021 semester. The students in the program have acquired skills that include fabricating nano-scale devices, developing advanced etch and lithography processes, presenting their work to staff and their peers, and conducting educational programs for the Singh Center for Nanotechnology in the form of lab courses and outreach events for local high school students.
GSFs fabricated MEMS devices, graphene sensors, quantum dot transistors, and directed self-assembly templates for a graduate lab course. They’ve also created processes for making microfluidic channels, microvalves, nanopores, multi-directional 3D microchannels, and for grayscale laser direct-writing lithography.
Graduate Student Fellows Program Awardees
Name
ABBAS IDRIS
MINGXUAN (MAX) MA
YANBIAO LI
YEONJOON SUH
DALE FARNAN
YINGQI QIANG
SHENSHEN WAN
AYANKAS PATTNAIK
JIE CAI
PEILIN LI
TONG DANG
LAUREN HOANG
ZHONGHUAN LUO
WEIBO (JASON) TENG
VISWANATH LANKA Program
BE
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
NANOTECHNOLOGY
ESE
MSE
MSE
ESE
BE
