Liwei Lin (Advisor)

Employing the Electrochemical Double Layers (EDL) phenomenon and porous electrode materials, the supercapacitor have an astonishing high specific capacitance, typically on the order of thousands of times greater than common capacitors. In this project, thanks to MEMS technology, we have for the first time brought the supercapacitor concept into micro scale. Different from its sandwich-like macro scale configuration, a novel planar structure has been proposed and implemented. This device has the wide potential applications such as micro power sources and circuitry components with...

This project intends to miniaturize the conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system into the micrometers range in dimension. It is believed that Micro-CVD provides better control on the gas flow, gas temperature and gas species in some aspects. This may result in the sythesis of unique nanostructures with new properties. Based on the idea, a prototype micro machined silicon structure is fabricated in the Microlab and is used to synthesize carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene. The CNTs can directly be grown on varies of substrate including paper and plastic, and they are of...

While single cell studies have historically been the driving force for cell biology, collective, or group, behavior is actually the true working mechanism of numerous growth and pathological phenomenon in the body including morphogenesis, wound healing, and cancer metastases. Mechanical micro-environment cues have been demonstrated as important regulators of single cell behavior, and this project focuses on investigating mechanical regulation of collective cell behavior via microtopographic substrates.

Project end date: 08/15/12

This project aims to study energy conversion and actuation properties of a new architecture electrospun piezoelectric nanofibers. It presents interesting potentials in various applications including power scavenge, sensing and actuation. Conceptually, we propose an in-situ stretching and poling process for the production of piezoelectric PVDF nanofibers using the "continuous near-field-electrospinning" process. Preliminary results conclude that location and pattern deposition control of continuous NFES are achievable for large area depositions of nanofibers. In this project, we will...