Publications

High-precision microlenses have been fabricated utilizing hydrophobic effects and polymer-jet printing technology. The lenses are formed precisely at desired locations on a wafer using a polymer-jet system in which hydrophobic effects define the lens diameter and surface tension creates a high-quality optical surface. They have 200–1000-μm diameters and 343–7862-μm focal lengths. At 635 nm, wavefront aberrations (measured using a Shack-Hartmann sensor of λ/100 accuracy) are λ/5-...

Room-temperature optoelectronic devices that operate at short-wavelength and mid-wavelength infrared ranges (one to eight micrometres) can be used for numerous applications. To achieve the range of operating wavelengths needed for a given application, a combination of materials with different bandgaps (for example, superlattices or heterostructures) or variations in the composition of semiconductor alloys during growth are used. However, these materials are complex to fabricate, and the operating range is fixed after fabrication. Although wide-range, active and reversible tunability...

The breakdown of organic substances to retrieve energy is a naturally occurring process in nature. Catabolic microorganisms contain enzymes capable of accelerating the disintegration of simple sugars and alcohols to produce separated charge in the form of electrons and protons as byproducts that can be harvested extracellularly through an electrochemical cell to produce electrical energy directly. Bioelectrochemical energy is then an appealing green alternative to other power sources. However, a number of fundamental questions must be addressed if the technology is to become...

In this dissertation, nanoplasmonic optical antennae are utilized as “nanoplasmonic gene switches” for on-demand and systematic gene regulation in living systems. The plasmon resonance of nanoplasmonic gene switches is specifically tuned to the near- infrared spectral region where cells and tissues are essentially transparent. Due to their extraordinarily large surface-to-volume ratio, nanoplasmonic gene switches are ideal carriers of interfering oligonucleotides, such as antisense DNA and short interfering RNA oligonucleotides (siRNA). Interfering oligonucleotides enable direct,...