NEWARK POST PHOTO BY KARIE SIMMONS Nanofabrication Lab The University of Delaware recently opened an 8,500-square-foot clean room that houses the most advanced nanotechnology machinery in the mid-Atlantic region—allowing students, researchers and local startup companies, who would otherwise have to travel to other universities across the country, the ability to conduct their research right on UD’s campus. Posted: Wednesday, February 3, 2016 12:41 am |Updated: 9:36 pm, Wed Feb 3, 2016. By Karie Simmons ksimmons@chespub.com The University of Delaware is investing big money in small-scale science with the recent opening of a $30 million nanofabrication facility in the Patrick T. Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory on Academy Street. The 8,500-square-foot clean room houses the most advanced nanotechnology machinery in the mid-Atlantic region –allowing students, researchers and local startup companies, who would otherwise have to travel to other universities across the country, the ability to conduct their research right on UD’s campus. “What can our faculty do now that they couldn’t do before? The answer is a lot,” said Matthew Doty, an associate professor in materials science and engineering, physics and electric and computer engineering departments. Doty is also faculty co-director of the UD Nanofabrication Facility (UDNF) and said the lab includes equipment and infrastructure necessary to fabricate devices at a nanometer scale.
One nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter, which is much smaller than what the human eye can see.
“If you take the diameter of a human hair and divide it into a thousand pieces, that’s the width of one nanometer,” Doty said.
In recent years, nanofabrication has caught the attention of computer engineers looking to create super-high-density microprocessors and memory chips, as well as researchers in the medical industry, the military and the aerospace industry.
Doty said UD’s facility has world-class capabilities in the areas of deposition, etching, lithography, material modification and characterization, which can come in handy in a variety of fields ranging from computer science to solar energy to physics.
The university is planning to invest $12 million in tools and equipment – $8 million of which has already been spent on what’s in the lab today – and even more money on outfitting the facility with highly sensitive temperature and humidity controls and devices that cancel out electromagnetic fields.
A few million dollars was also spent on a state-of-the-art air handling system.
Doty said the air in the lab is constantly being sucked up through vents and then pushed back inside after passing through two layers of filtering to make sure the space is free of dust and other contaminants that could interfere with experiments. In one hour, the air is changed approximately 300 times.
Before entering the lab, researchers have to “gown up,” which involves putting on booties, a hairnet, face mask and pair of gloves. After that, researchers climb into a full-body jumpsuit with a hood and cover their feet with an additional protective layer.
“The dust in the air is much bigger than what we’re trying to make, so we have to do everything we can to keep those particles out of the lab,” Doty said.
“This is the cleanest room on campus,” he added.
Before the UDNF opened this year, the university had a nano lab in DuPont Hall, but it was limited and Doty said professors, researchers and students had to conduct parts of their experiments at more advanced facilities, sometimes traveling long distances across the country.
That space in DuPont Hall has since been renovated into teaching labs, and soon undergraduate and graduate-level students will be able to learn the techniques necessary to work in the UDNF.
“The fact that we have this facility means the number of students who are going to do this kind of research is going to increase dramatically,” Doty said. “We’re now going to have a pipeline of people wanting to get in here and needing the skills to do it.”
The lab is available to anyone willing to pay the hourly rate to use the specialized equipment and will be open to the university community, as well as industry partners, government partners and entrepreneurs. UD officials believe the nano lab, in addition to the ISE Lab and other advanced laboratories on campus, will help attract tenants to the STAR Campus.
Doty said access to equipment in the UDNF is also affordable for startup companies, such as those who will be renting space in Delaware Technology Park’s 10,000-square-foot wet lab at the STAR Campus.