More Like this

1. Enhanced electrochemical biosensor and supercapacitor with 3D porous architectured graphene via salt impregnated inkjet maskless lithography

   https://doi.org/10.1039/C8NH00377G  

   Hondred, John A. ; Medintz, Igor L. ; Claussen, Jonathan C. ( April 2019 , Nanoscale Horizons)

   Advances in solution-phase graphene patterning has provided a facile route for rapid, low-cost and scalable manufacturing of electrochemical devices, even on flexible substrates. While graphene possesses advantageous electrochemical properties of high surface area and fast heterogenous charge transport, these properties are attributed to the edge planes and defect sites, not the basal plane. Herein, we demonstrate enhancement of the electroactive nature of patterned solution-phase graphene by increasing the porosity and edge planes through the construction of a multidimensional architecture via salt impregnated inkjet maskless lithography (SIIML) and CO 2 laser annealing. Various sized macroscale pores (<25 to ∼250 μm) are patterned directly in the graphene surface by incorporating porogens ( i.e. , salt crystals) in the graphene ink which act as hard templates for pore formation and are later dissolved in water. Subsequently, microsized pores (∼100 nm to 2 μm in width) with edge plane defects are etched in the graphene lattice structure by laser annealing with a CO 2 laser, simultaneously improving electrical conductivity by nearly three orders of magnitude (sheet resistance decreases from >10 000 to ∼50 Ω sq −1 ). We demonstrate that this multidimensional porous graphene fabrication method can improve electrochemical device performance through design and manufacturemore »of an electrochemical organophosphate biosensor that uses the enzyme acetylcholinesterase for detection. This pesticide biosensor exhibits enhanced sensitivity to acetylthiocholine compared to graphene without macropores (28.3 μA nM −1 to 13.3 μA nM −1 ) and when inhibited by organophosphate pesticides (paraoxon) has a wide linear range (10 nM to 500 nM), low limit of detection (0.6 nM), and high sensitivity (12.4 nA nM −1 ). Moreover, this fabrication method is capable of patterning complex geometries [ i.e. interdigitated electrodes (IDEs)] even on flexible surfaces as demonstrated by an IDE supercapacitor made of SIIML graphene on a heat sensitive polymer substrate. The supercapacitor demonstrates a high energy density of 0.25 mW h cm −3 at a power density of 0.3 W cm −3 . These electrochemical devices demonstrate the benefit of using SIIML and CO 2 laser annealing for patterning graphene electrodes with a multidimensional porous surface even on flexible substrates and is therefore a platform technology which could be applied to a variety of different biosensors and other electrochemical devices.« less
2. Robust Microfabrication of Highly Parallelized Three-Dimensional Microfluidics on Silicon

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48515-4  

   Yadavali, Sagar ; Lee, Daeyeon ; Issadore, David ( August 2019 , Scientific Reports)

   We present a new, robust three dimensional microfabrication method for highly parallel microfluidics, to improve the throughput of on-chip material synthesis by allowing parallel and simultaneous operation of many replicate devices on a single chip. Recently, parallelized microfluidic chips fabricated in Silicon and glass have been developed to increase the throughput of microfluidic materials synthesis to an industrially relevant scale. These parallelized microfluidic chips require large arrays (>10,000) of Through Silicon Vias (TSVs) to deliver fluid from delivery channels to the parallelized devices. Ideally, these TSVs should have a small footprint to allow a high density of features to be packed into a single chip, have channels on both sides of the wafer, and at the same time minimize debris generation and wafer warping to enable permanent bonding of the device to glass. Because of these requirements and challenges, previous approaches cannot be easily applied to produce three dimensional microfluidic chips with a large array of TSVs. To address these issues, in this paper we report a fabrication strategy for the robust fabrication of three-dimensional Silicon microfluidic chips consisting of a dense array of TSVs, designed specifically for highly parallelized microfluidics. In particular, we have developed a two-layer TSVmore »design that allows small diameter vias (d < 20 µm) without sacrificing the mechanical stability of the chip and a patterned SiO₂etch-stop layer to replace the use of carrier wafers in Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE). Our microfabrication strategy allows >50,000 (d = 15 µm) TSVs to be fabricated on a single 4” wafer, using only conventional semiconductor fabrication equipment, with 100% yield (M = 16 chips) compared to 30% using previous approaches. We demonstrated the utility of these fabrication strategies by developing a chip that incorporates 20,160 flow focusing droplet generators onto a single 4” Silicon wafer, representing a 100% increase in the total number of droplet generators than previously reported. To demonstrate the utility of this chip for generating pharmaceutical microparticle formulations, we generated 5–9 µm polycaprolactone particles with a CV < 5% at a rate as high as 60 g/hr (>1 trillion particles/hour).

   « less
3. Study of Layer Formation During Droplet-Based 3D Printing of Gel Structures

   https://doi.org/10.1115/MSEC2017-3050  

   Christensen, Kyle ; Huang, Yong ( June 2017 , ASME 2017 12th International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference collocated with the JSME/ASME 2017 6th International Conference on Materials and Processing)

   Additive manufacturing, also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, is an approach in which a structure may be fabricated layer by layer. For 3D inkjet printing, droplets are ejected from a nozzle and each layer is formed droplet by droplet. Inkjet printing has been widely applied for the fabrication of 3D biological gel structures, but the knowledge of the microscale interactions between printed droplets is still largely elusive. This study aims to elucidate the alginate layer formation process during drop-on-demand inkjet printing using high speed imaging and particle image velocimetry. Droplets are found to impact, spread, and coalesce within a fluid region at the deposition site, forming coherent printed lines within a layer. Interfaces are found to form between printed lines within a layer depending on printing conditions and printing path orientation. The effects of printing conditions on the behavior of droplets during layer formation are discussed and modeled based on gelation dynamics, and recommendations are presented to enable controllable and reliable fabrication of gel structures.
4. Multi-chip heterogeneously integrated array of active three-terminal transistor lasers and passive photonic structures for electronic-photonic integration on silicon

   https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2544009  

   Carlson, John A. ; Dallesasse, John M. ( February 2020 , Proceedings Volume 11285, Silicon Photonics XV)

   Reed, Graham T. ; Knights, Andrew P. (Ed.)

   An array of active photonic devices is fabricated in unison after a heterogeneous integration process first metal-eutectically bonds these distinct materials as a distribution onto a silicon host wafer. The patterning out of heterogeneous materials followed by the formation of all photonic devices allows for wide-area fine-alignment without the need for discrete die alignment or placement. The integration process is designed as a CMOS-compatible, scalable method for bringing together distinct III-V epitaxial structures and optical-waveguiding epitaxial structures, demonstrating the capabilities of forming a multi-chip layer of photonic materials. Integrated GaAs-based vertical light-emitting transistors (LET) are designed and fabricated as the active devices whose third electrical terminal provides an electrical interconnect and thermal dissipation path to the silicon host wafer. The performance of these devices as both electrical transistors and spontaneous-emission optical devices is compared to their monolithically-integrated counterparts to investigate improvements in device characteristics when integrated onto silicon. The fabrication methods are modified and optimized for thin-film transferred materials and are then extended to transistor laser (TL) fabrication. Passive waveguiding structures are designed and simulated for coupling light from the active devices, and their fabrication scheme is presented such that it can be similarly performed with transferred materials. Work towardmore »the demonstration of integrated transistor lasers is shown to represent progress toward an electronic-photonic circuit network. The combination of heterogeneous integration with three-terminal photonic structures enables an elegant solution to both packaging and signal interconnect constraints for the implementation of photonic logic in silicon photonics systems.« less
5. Mixed-dimensional InAs nanowire on layered molybdenum disulfide heterostructures via selective-area van der Waals epitaxy

   https://doi.org/10.1039/D0NA00768D  

   Baboli, Mohadeseh A. ; Abrand, Alireza ; Burke, Robert A. ; Fedorenko, Anastasiia ; Wilhelm, Thomas S. ; Polly, Stephen J. ; Dubey, Madan ; Hubbard, Seth M. ; Mohseni, Parsian K. ( May 2021 , Nanoscale Advances)

   Self-assembly of vertically aligned III–V semiconductor nanowires (NWs) on two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) nanomaterials allows for integration of novel mixed-dimensional nanosystems with unique properties for optoelectronic and nanoelectronic device applications. Here, selective-area vdW epitaxy (SA-vdWE) of InAs NWs on isolated 2D molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) domains is reported for the first time. The MOCVD growth parameter space ( i.e. , V/III ratio, growth temperature, and total molar flow rates of metalorganic and hydride precursors) is explored to achieve pattern-free positioning of single NWs on isolated multi-layer MoS 2 micro-plates with one-to-one NW-to-MoS 2 domain placement. The introduction of a pre-growth poly- l -lysine surface treatment is highlighted as a necessary step for mitigation of InAs nucleation along the edges of triangular MoS 2 domains and for NW growth along the interior region of 2D micro-plates. Analysis of NW crystal structures formed under the optimal SA-vdWE condition revealed a disordered combination of wurtzite and zinc-blend phases. A transformation of the NW sidewall faceting structure is observed, resulting from simultaneous radial overgrowth during axial NW synthesis. A common lattice arrangement between axially-grown InAs NW core segments and MoS 2 domains is described as the epitaxial basis for vertical NWmore »growth. A model is proposed for a common InAs/MoS 2 sub-lattice structure, consisting of three multiples of the cubic InAs unit cell along the [21̄1̄] direction, commensurately aligned with a 14-fold multiple of the Mo–Mo (or S–S) spacing along the [101̄0] direction of MoS 2 hexagonal lattice. The SA-vdWE growth mode described here enables controlled hybrid integration of mixed-dimensional III–V-on-2D heterostructures as novel nanosystems for applications in optoelectronics, nanoelectronics, and quantum enabling technologies.« less