Liwei Lin (Advisor)

Oxide semiconductors have been attracting great interest for renewable energy and sensing applications due to their earth- abundance, stability, and cost-effectiveness. In this project, we explore cupric oxide (CuO) nanowires, which are grown in highly dense and vertically aligned arrays via thermal oxidation of copper foil in ambient air. This material shows great promise for photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution owing to a desirable electronic band gap and exceptional light-trapping properties. Initial results reveal a photocurrent comparable to other high-performing oxide...

Mechanical engineering methods and microfabrication techniques offer powerful means for solving biological challenges. In particular, microfabrication processes enable researchers to develop technologies at scales that are biologically relevant and advantageous for executing biochemical reactions. Here, microfluidic, optofluidic, an 3D printing-based methodologies are employed to develop autonomous microfluidic components, circuits, and systems for chemical and biological applications.

Project end date: 08/15/14

The project amis at using Near Field Electrospinnin to fabricate top gate graphene transistor that is capable to pattern the source and drain electrodes through a self-alignment process, and the long range goals is to direct writing graphene transistors onto flexible and transparent substrate for low cost circuit applications, say RF mixer. As the conventional top gated device fabrication process often introduces the deposition of thin inorganic dielectric onto graphene layer with extra surface functionalizations, leading to an undesired damage of graphene lattice, or a non-ideal...

This project aims for developing a new 'human-powered' microfluidic system for point-of-care diagnostics applications. Chip- based microfluidics offers a promising platform for biological studies; however, bulky and expensive equipments such as syringe pumps limit the application. To minimize the total setup, we propose an alternative 'human-powered' fluid pumping device. Pressure generated by human finger works as a major power source to pump fluids into microfluidic devices without any electricity. As we use common softlithography fabrication process, our system can be easily...