1. Additive nano-manufacturing
Additive manufacturing, also known as the industrial version of 3-D printing, has already been used at the macroscales by engineers and designers for the rapid prototyping and low-volume production. Unfortunately, such rapid prototyping techniques are yet to be developed for nano-manufacturing. Such a technology would be a game changer for the nanomanufacturing and enable the promises made on the prospects of nanotechnology. Our lab is devoted to solving such challenging problems by developing affordable and easy-to-implement technologies for additive nano-manufacturing in the air. The ultimate goal is to showcase an additive nanomanufacturing platform that is easy-to-build and ready-to-use for rapid fabrication of sub-5nm nanostructures on any types of substrate.
The figure to the top shows such an additive nanomanufacturing technology that allows for the rapid fabrication of gold nano-trimer and nano-dimers in ambient conditions. More details can be found in the following papers:
The figure to the top shows such an additive nanomanufacturing technology that allows for the rapid fabrication of gold nano-trimer and nano-dimers in ambient conditions. More details can be found in the following papers:
- "Additive Opto-Thermomechanical Nanoprinting and Nanorepairing under Ambient Conditions", Md Shah Alam, Qiwen Zhan, and Chenglong Zhao, Nano Letters, 20, 5057–5064, (2020). [PDF]
- "Laser additive nano-manufacturing under ambient conditions", Chenglong Zhao, Piyush J. Shah and Luke J. Bissell, Nanoscale, 11, 16187 (2019). [PDF]
- "Nondestructive Approach for Additive Nanomanufacturing of Metallic Nanostructures in the Air" Md Shah Alam, Chenglong Zhao, ACS Omega, 3(1), 1213–1219 (2018). [PDF]
2. Super-resolution nano imaging
Optical imaging with nanoscale resolution and a large field of view are highly desirable in many research areas. Unfortunately, it is challenging to achieve these two features simultaneously while using a conventional microscope. An objective lens with a low numerical aperture (NA) has a large field of view but poor resolution. In contrast, a high NA objective lens will have a higher resolution but a reduced field of view. In an effort to close the gap between these trade-offs, we are developing a scanning nano-imaging system based on microspheres.
More details can be found in the following papers:
- "An acoustofluidic scanning nanoscope using enhanced image stacking and processing", Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 8, 81 (2022) [PDF]
- "Intelligent nanoscope for rapid nanomaterial identification and classification", Lab on a Chip, (2022). DOI: 10.1039/D2LC00206J [PDF]
- "Acoustofluidic Scanning Nanoscope with High Resolution and Large Field of View", ACS Nano, 14, 8624–8633, (2020). [PDF]