PCCM researchers have discovered a new method for making gratings: by prying apart two rigid plates that sandwich a thin, glassy polymeric film. The process fractures the film into complementary sets of ridges on each plate, with the ridges on one corresponding to the valleys on the other. The technique produces patterns with periodic spacing from 120 nm to 200 Â’µm, and the period simply scales as four times the film thickness, regardless of the molecular weight or chemical composition of the glassy polymer.

Electronic transport through a junction formed between silicon (Si), a monolayer of alkyl chains (C14H29) self-assembled on Si, and a metal (M) is dominated by thermionic emission above the semiconductor barrier and tunneling through the insulating molecular layer [1].

While many approaches have been developed over the years to transfer patterns onto flat surfaces, faithfully transferring patterns onto curves substrates remains a major obstacle to the development of large-area electronics. Recently, PCCM researchers have successfully patterned domed polyester substrates with metal stripes (gold, silver, etc.). They employed a soft, pre-patterned elastomeric stamp coated with a thin layer of metal by electron-beam evaporation, bent into a complementary hemisphere.

Surfactant adsorption at solid-liquid interfaces is important in many industrial processes, including corrosion inhibition, dispersion stabilization, and lubrication. Furthermore, surfactant adsorption may provide novel and exciting means to guide soft materials to self-assemble into a myriad of tailored shapes. Recently, PCCM researchers have made a breakthrough in elucidating the physical mechanisms behind surfactant self-assembly on a graphite surface [1].

To create a nationally replicable model of a sustainable and continuously up-gradable hands-on undergraduate teaching laboratory of scanning probe methods, GEMSEC is working with researchers from the UW's Center for Nanotechnology, educators from North Seattle Community College, representatives from a scanning probe microscopy manufacturer, and a nanotechnology SPM distributor. This partnership, NUE UNIQUE, will inaugurate a new paradigm of initiating, operating, and maintaining a SPM laboratory to serve entire classes of undergraduate students with a student to instrument ratio of ~3:1.

Functionally active thin film coatings find many important uses in the biomedical field as sensors and drug delivery systems. Members of IRG-II have created a new multilayer coating that can serve both functions. By creating a patterned multilayer stack comprised of alternating regions of low refractive index (nanoporous regions) and high refractive index (dense regions), the coating exhibits bright iridescent colors similar to those observed in, for example, hummingbird wings (see Figure below).

Members of of IRG-I have recently introduced a new concept in fiber lasers. Until now, emission from fiber lasers originated solely from the fiber ends in the axial direction with a spot size dictated by the core radius. In contrast, these novel lasers, termed surface-emitting fiber lasers (SEFLs), emit radiation radially and are capable of dynamic tuning of both the gain-medium position along the fiber axis and the direction of emission.These interesting results suggest that the direction of the laser beam can be controlled remotely just by rotating the pump polarization.

In 2004, PCCM launched a partnership with ASM to run a week-long "Materials Camp" for high school teachers. Over the past four years, over 120 teachers have been trained to teach materials science in local schools. In follow-up evaluations and refresher sessions, teachers report in using this knowledge in their classrooms.

Magnetic storage of digital data is now possible at densities approaching 1 Terabit per square inch at a cost of only about a tenth of a cent per Megabit. To a large extent, the breathtaking progress in this area of technology is sustained by discovery of bits. The invention of “GMR" sensors based on stacks of ultra-thin films of magnetic metals (for which the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 2007) is a perfect example.