RESEARCH THRUSTS:
An interdisciplinary approach will be taken and the multi-facetted research of COINS will focus on molecular and nanometer level mechanics at the interface of hard and soft matter. COINS will have five thrusts centering on an "element-to-device-to-system" research strategy:
(I) Key Nanomechanical Building Blocks;
(II) Theoretical Simulation of Nanomechanics;
(III) Mechanical Behavior of Nanostructure Elements;
(IV) Instrumentations for Nanomechanical Measurements;
(V) Nanomechanical System Integration.
Chemical synthesis (Thrust I) will play a significant role in generating key nanomechanical building blocks including synthetic/biological molecules, nanotubes and nanowires.
Computational schemes at the atomistic and continuum levels (Thrust II) will be developed to address the scaling effects observed in the experiments and offer theoretical insight and guidance for the experimental works in COINS.
Research thrust III will probe the intrinsic mechanical behaviors of the key nanomechanical building blocks produced in Thrust I. Optical tweezers, AFM/STM and in-situ TEM will be used to systematically study the quality factor, strength, friction, wear, and energy dissipation at nanometer scale.
In addition, novel nanomechanical testing procedures and devices (Thrust IV) will be designed in order to assess the mechanical properties of the nanomechanical building blocks. These include AFM
systems for RF resonator characterization, MEMS-based testing platforms for nanostructures, and non-contact nanomechanical instrumentation.
Thrust V will tackle the system integration issues utilizing nanomechanical units developed and characterized in the other four thrusts. Here, the bottom-up synthetic techniques will substantially leverage the conventional top-down approaches for NEMS fabrication.
Concepts of self-organization will be adapted from nature in intriguing biological mechanical systems such Gecko feet, spider silk and diatom frustules. Thrust V will ultimately enable the integration of individual devices into fully functional nanomechanical systems capable of performing highly complex tasks. Systems proposed here include nanomechanical chemical/biological sensing/detection systems, nano-electro-mechanical transistors for high-density, low-power, low-cost computation, MEMS instrumentation platform for accessing NEMS, and an ultrahigh-resolution mechanically-detected
Magnetic Resonance Imaging system.
INTELLECTUAL MERIT.
COINS's mission is to lay the scientific and engineering foundations for the design, synthesis, simulation, testing and integration of novel mechanical nanostructures into a system level of high complexity and advanced functionalities. The center is focused to create the knowledge basis for the fabrication, testing and integration of nanomechanical building blocks from molecular to nanometer level. Fundamental issues such as the scaling law of the mechanical properties, the ultimate limit of the mechanical systems, and soft-hard matter interfacing will be addressed.
BROADER IMPACT.
The implementation of truly integrated nano-mechanical systems would inspire and realize revolutionary applications involving molecular transport, replication, and energy conversion, with significant benefits to important technologies such as chemical/biological sensing, noninvasive medical diagnostics, ultrahigh-density data storages, computation, communication and
power generation. In addition, COINS also has an important mission of workforce training in the emerging world of nanoscale science and technology.