Volume 1, Issue 2
Nano News
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
Summer 2008
NanoScience Center Student Attends Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany
Paul Stokes was selected as one of only 60 participants from the U.S. to attend the upcoming Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting for Physics in Germany in June. Paul is a graduate student in the Department of Physics and is a Ph.D. student of Dr. Saiful Khondaker (joint Physics appointment). Dr. Khondaker initiated Paul's nomination to the Nobel Laureate Meeting which was formally nominated by the VP of Research, Dr. M.J. Soileau. As part of this process, Paul attended the meeting in Germany, listened to the Nobel prize winners' lectures,
Paul Stokes is in the front row, second from the right in a white shirt
and took part in various networking experiences during this week long event from June 29th to July 4th. Paul and his mentor’s work is represented in an upcoming article in Nanotechnology titled: “Local-gated single-walled carbon nano-
tube field effect transistors assembled by AC dielectrophoresis”. We congratulate Paul and are happy to play a role in this rich educational experience! Read more about Paul on page 4.
Dr. Perez to Receive NIH R01 Grant Dr. Perez (joint Chemistry appointment) just received word that his NIH R01 proposal titled An integrated NMR/magnetic nanosensor system for detection of bacteria and toxins will be awarded. Over a 4 year period this will provide over $800,000 to address this
crucial topic. It will explore the creation of a point-of-care, fieldbased system to analyze water and food for diseases and toxins.
Inside this issue:
Dr. Perez (back row, middle) and his research group.
NanoScience Technology Center
The Director’s Corner
2
Nano Faculty News
2
Nano Faculty Profile: Dr. Michael Leuenberger
3
Nano Student News
4
Nano Student Profile: Paul Stokes and his Nobel Laureate Visit
5
Upcoming Nano Events
5
12424 Research Parkway Suite 400 Orlando Florida 32826 Phone: (407) 882-1578 Fax: (407) 882-2819 http://www.nanoscience.ucf.edu
The Director’s Corner The nanoinitiative at UCF began in 2002 when the state of Florida granted UCF recurring funding in the targeted area of nanoscale science and technology. All metrics suggest that the NanoScience Technology Center and other campus-wide nano-initiatives have been a wise investment in terms of attracting external funding, creating industrial partnerships, and gaining international recognition. External research funding resulting from the nano-initiative totaled over $6.4 million in 2006 while it exceeded $8.5 million in 2007. Recent award activity this year suggests that our research funding will exceed that of 2007!
Nano Faculty News
At the NanoScience Technology Center we have had other significant accomplishments and events since publishing our last Nano News. This includes: securing new funding from NSF, DARPA, and NIH; a new and improved web site (www.nanoscience.ucf.edu); and we have received international visitors from Japan, Vienna, Turkey, China, Jordan and elsewhere. Currently we are actively involved in the planning of the inaugural student-run NanoFlorida 2008 conference that will occur Sept 26th – the 27th. We held successful internal and external advisory board meetings where our peers had a chance to look at what we are doing and provided useful guidance for the future. And speaking of the future, our search for the Director of the NanoScience Technology Center and the Advance Materials Processing and Analysis Center (AMPAC) is in high gear and we have attracted excellent candidates.
The smooth operation of the NanoScience Technology Center requires a hard working and dedicated administrative staff to operate efficiently. In support of these activities I am happy to announce that Raji Natarajan has been promoted to Assistant Director. I would also like to welcome Joshua Hallam as our new HR coordinator. Debra R. Reinhart, Ph.D., PE
Dr. Artem Masunov Wins the ACS’s HP Outstanding Junior Faculty Award Dr. Artem Masunov (joint Chemistry appointment) has received the prestigious American Chemical Society’s Hewlett Packard Outstanding Junior Faculty Award. The HP Faculty Award is expected to provide recipients with revolutionary research ideas that are critical to future technology developments. This grant is designed to assist new faculty members in career development. We congratulate Dr. Masunov in this achievement!
Dr. Quo “Treen” Huo ’s Article Selected for ChemComm Cover
Florida Innovation Caucus visits the Nano Center The NanoScience Technology Center was visited recently by the members of Florida’s Innovation Caucus. The visit was prompted by the perceived economic value that the NanoScience Center will bring in spin-off companies.
Congratulations to Dr. Quo "Treen" Huo for her new cover article in the July 7th, edition of ChemComm titled "Surface modification of gold nanorods through a place exchange reaction inside an ionic exchange resin."
Drs. Saiful Khondaker & Andre Gesquiere were awarded prestigious NSF grant Congratulations to Drs. Khondaker & Gesquiere for their new NSF grant titled: Planar gated organic photovoltaic devices.
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We have a diverse and growing student and post-doc population. This fall, we expect 40 new undergraduate students, graduate students, and post docs, in addition to our current 80. Our faculty and students are publishing in the best journals (including recent cover stories in Chem Comm and Advanced Materials). Faculty and students have also been receiving praise from their peers in the form of international awards for their papers and research. You can read more about faculty and student activities elsewhere in our newsletter.
Kudos to Dr. Ming Su for Two Grants Awards from NSF & UT Corp Dr. Ming Su was awarded a grant from NSF titled Encapsulated phase change nanoparticles for heat transfer & one from the Universal Technology Corp titled: High-heat-capacity poly-alphaolefin based nanofluid using encapsulated phase change nanoparticles. Joint NSF/Romania Workshop Funded! In a collaboration between the NSTC & the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a group of researchers from both institutes will travel to Romania in May 2009 to participate in a 5-day workshop exploring new developments in nanoscience. The goal is to give direction to future research collaborations between Romanian and UCF research teams. This will be led by Dr. James Hickman, the Founding Director of the NSTC, in the U.S., while Professor Alexander Stancu, the Director of CARPATH, will coordinate this project in Romania. Hickman will receive assistance from Romanian nationals at UCF Dan Marinescu, a professor and prominent researcher, and Nicoleta Sorloaica-Hickman, an assistant professor at FSEC and former student of Stancu. N A N O N EW S
Nano Faculty Profile: Dr. Michael Leuenberger Dr. Michael Leuenberger is originally from Switzerland and he completed three postdoctoral fellowships (UCSD, University of Basel, & University of Iowa) in preparation to explore the complex realm of Quantum Information Science. Michael is using this approach to improve the security of satellite communication. He is currently exploring this possibility from both a theoretical perspective with high end computer clusters, and an experimental approach using the International Space Station. This approach has the potential of providing unconditionally secure quantum communication between land-based stations and satellites. Quantum communication has tremendous potential; however, there are current roadblocks to overcome to solve real world problems such as creating a system that can function at distances greater than 10 km. Quantum communication is based on a phenomenon called "quantum entanglement� which occurs when two quantum-information carriers, such as photons, are aware of each other's existence and know each other's particular quantum state, i.e. they are quantum-mechanically correlated, despite being physically separated at long distances. It is one peculiar effect of the strange, mysterious world of quantum physics. Currently, photon channels, such as fiber-optic cables, are the only realistic choice for quantum communication. However, creating highfidelity quantum entanglement between photons at two distant locations becomes exponentially more difficult as the distance between them increases, seriously impeding the real-life implementation of quantum communication. Extending the range to practical distances remains a challenge on many levels. However, an upcoming experiment illustrated below will test Michael’s innovative approach to this problem.
An illustration of an upcoming experiment created by Dr. Leuenberger in which a Quantum Information Science encryption method will be tested utilizing two base stations in Spain and a mobile quantum station located in the International Space Station. VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2
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Nano Student News Paul Stokes visits Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany Paul Stokes was selected as one of only 60 participants from the U.S. to attend the upcoming Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting for Physics in Germany in June. Paul is a graduate student in the Department of Physics and is a Ph.D. student of Dr. Saiful Khondaker (joint faculty appointment NanoScience center & Physics). Paul grew up in New Jersey and surprisingly he was originally an accounting major at West Virginia University. He wasn’t enjoying his coursework and then he took a couple of science courses, really enjoyed them, and eventually decided to transfer to Physics. When he graduated with a B.S. in Physics he applied to many large, well known Physics graduate programs, but he is very pleased he came to UCF because of the 1-on-1 guidance he receives from his mentor, Dr. Khondaker. After graduation Paul is considering a position in the developing nanoelectronics industry in either a startup or with an established company such as Intel. We congratulate Paul and wish him great success in the years to come! NanoScience Students create Success for UCF’s Research Week Thanks to our undergraduate students Carl Irani (see page 5) and Mercedes Gonzalez for serving as student ambassadors during our recent UCF Research NanoScience undergraduate Week. Everyone student Mercedes Gonzalez. had a terrific time, see http:// ww.nanoscience.ucf.edu/news/multimedia.php for more information. Nano student wins ACS Graduate Award Congratulations to Satyender Goel for receiving the Graduate Student Excellence Award—Chemical Computing Group from the 236th American Chemical Society’s National conference to be held in Philadelphia this August. See www.acscomp.org/ Awards/ccg.html for more information. It is a terrific accomplishment and the ACS conference is a great networking opportunity to review the most recent breakthroughs in chemical research methods.
Pictures from Paul Stokes recent visit to the Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany. Page 4
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Nano Student Profile: Carl Irani Carl was born in Queens, New York, but grew up in Orlando, Florida. Carl is a 20-year-old Junior at UCF and is enrolled in our unique undergraduate Nano Track program. "This is a really great interdisciplinary program, it is the only nanoscience undergraduate program in the state of Florida and there are only a handful of these nano programs across the country. I became interested in nanoscience because my uncle, who works at Johnson &. Johnson, told me I should look into this field. He said there were some new and exciting things happening, it’s expanding and growing and now is the time to get into this area. I took his advice and ran with it." Right now Carl is working with Dr. Lei Zhai, a faculty member at the NanoScience Technology. "I am working on lots of projects now, improving the fabrication of nanofibers for drug delivery systems using organic polymers and I am also working on the fabrication of an antibacteria nanofiber filter that could be used to filter polluted water. I like to see what the other labs are doing as well, because it's always changing. You can learn a lot of things here, even if you don't have that much knowledge in the field of the lab you are working . The people are really friendly and able to help you out. You have to be a quick learner in nanotechnology, or any science for that matter. When you do learn things, you learn it and you remember it because you are doing the projects yourself." After Carl graduates he plans to continue his education. "My plan is to go to obtain a Master's of Business Administration (MBA) and combine my interest in nanoscience with business, it's perfect for me."
Carl participates in many events at the center. This is a recent photograph from the Summer UCF Research Week in which the NanoScience Technology Center was a favorite site for students. Carl is in the back row wearing sunglasses. Page 5
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Nano Staff News Raji Natarajan promoted to Assistant Director Congratulations to Raji Natarajan for her well-deserved promotion to Assistant Director, Research Programs & Services. (see profile below). New Human Resources Coordinator Arrives!
Congratulations to our new Human Resources Coordinator-Joshua Hallam who comes to us from UCF’s Office of Research. Kudos to our Nano Staff for their Expert Service
On Administrative Week we collectively thanked our Nano Staff for all their hard work on budgets, proposals, complex purchase orders and bringing good cheer into the lives of busy academics. We welcome back Diane Maldonado after a long and well deserved vacation in Puerto Rico. Diane looks after department’s purchase and administrative tasks.
Nano Staff Profile: Raji Natarajan, MBA
Members of our Nano Staff. From L-R:Cara Roesner, Ushaben Lal, Diane Maldonado, Raji Natarajan, & Debbie Fry.
Debbie Fry is our tireless accountant, Michelle Shirzad our everdiligent receptionist, Ushaben Lal, a new immigrant from Australia is our Travel Coordinator and she organizes trips, seminars and conferences. Cara was an ever cheerful member of our team, but recently accepted a position that was closer to her home. Thank you one and all!
Raji Natarajan is a strong advocate for our University and is a living example that UCF Stands for Opportunity. Raji has been at the NanoScience Technology Center since its inception and was recently promoted to Assistant Director, Research Programs & Services. In this role, Raji has a wide variety of responsibilities; she has substantial human resources (HR) and budgetary responsibilities that are an important part of running a large research center. Raji has a role in all of the ongoing projects here. Raji was born and raised in Chennai (formerly known as Madras) in the southeast coastal region of India. At the University of Madras, she completed a bachelor's degree in Business with a focus in International Finance. She studied business because she was fascinated with economics although that was a controversial choice in a society that encourages the pursuit of law, medicine or engineering degrees. After she graduated she completed a year-long internship at an international bank in the foreign exchange department while pursuing a post graduate diploma. She enjoyed her experience, but she became interested in opportunities to pursue her Masters in the United States because she perceived that there was a glass ceiling for a female in the male-dominated business community in India. Another reason for her interest in pursuing a Masters degree in the U.S. is that Raji’s brother Our new Assistant Director, Raji Natarajan, MBA. completed his education in the United States and was encouraging her to explore options in the US. Raji’s brother was already living in the Orlando area, UCF has a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) with a focus on Management Information Systems, and therefore she included UCF in her MBA search. She is very happy she did. “Business is perceived to be a very mechanical process, but translating an organization’s mission into a tangible strategy and then motivating people to pursue this vision, that’s key. People are your most valuable resource and therefore HR management interests me to a great deal. I have been here since the beginning of the center and I enjoy using my business skills to help manage this now multimillion dollar operation. This role has helped me to grow professionally and personally.” In the future, Raji would like to pursue a doctoral degree that combines her interest in human resources and information systems. “I like the interface between the two, how information passes between people to accomplish strategic goals.” The Nano Center is very thankful that Raji calls UCF home. Page 6
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Upcoming NanoScience Technology Center Seminars Speaker
When
Location
Dr. Jersy Leszcynski -Jackson State Univ
Sept 4 2008
NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway
Dr. Bryan Huey, Univ of Connecticut
Sept 18 2008
NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway
Dr. John Grey – Univ of New Mexico
Sept 25 2008
NanoScience Technology Center
Dr. Oleg Prezhdo - Univ of Washington
Oct 3 2008
Room 475 12424 Research Parkway NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway
Dr. Rao Y. Surampalli - EPA
Oct 13 2008
NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway
Dr. Gonzalo Cosa -McGill University
Oct 14 2008
NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway
Dr. Amanda Haes - University of Iowa
Nov 6 2008
NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway
Dr. Chongwu Zhou – University of Southern California
Nov 2008
Dr. Ken Wynne – Virginia Commonwealth University
Nov 21 2008
Dr. Abdou Hussainen—National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan
Dec 2008
NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway NanoScience Technology Center Room 475 12424 Research Parkway
Upcoming Nano Conferences IEEE Nano 2008 8th International Conference on Nanotechnology will be in Arlington, TX from Aug 18-21
The UCF NanoScience Technology Center will describe new discoveries in the world of nano on Sept 26th—27th (see page 8) in this free, trans-Florida event.
Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference
NanoTxUSA Conference
The Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference will be held Sept 8-10 in Vancouver, WA to explore Science to Commercialization for the Micro/Nanotechnology Economy.
This will be held October 2-3rd in Dallas, TX to review nanotechnology commercial potential.
Nano Florida 2008
This will be held October 7-9, 2008. Hyatt Regency Chicago, Chicago, IL.
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EPA’s International Environmental Nanotechnology Conference
AVS 2008 The American Vacuum Society will hold their annual conference on Oct. 19-24 in Boston, MA. Many argue that the AVS is the birthplace of the nano movement starting in 1953 to explore developments in vaccum test environments. NASA National Nano Engineering Conference NNEC 2008 NASA’s Tech Brief’s will hold their annual conference on Nov. 12-13 in Boston, MA. N A N O N EW S
NanoFlorida 2008
Orlando, FL Sept 26th & 27th, 2008
Free Event—Everyone is welcome! Come hear Harry Kroto, Nobel Laureate from Florida State University deliver a live streaming talk and Bill Appleton Director of the Nanoscience Institute for Medical & Engineering Technology @ the University of Florida will provide the keynote address!
Nano/Materials Affiliates Program Please consider becoming one of the founding members of UCF’s Nano/Materials Industrial Affiliates Program. This program has been created to meet the needs of your company and to provide our faculty members with an interface with the commercial world. The NanoScience Technology Center has 18 faculty members; in 2008 we received three prestigious NSF CAREER awards and one DARPA Young Faculty Award. We seek to leverage our core state line funding of over $4M annually into exciting research findings and commercializable IP. Founding membership costs are a modest $1k/yr. Feel free to call us at 407 882-1189 or E-mail us at anderj@mail.ucf.edu if we can answer any questions about this program. See http://www.nanoscience.ucf.edu/industry for more information. Jeffrey M. Anderson, Ph.D. Associate Director / Industrial Affiliates Liaison
Open Faculty Position The University of Central Florida is seeking tenured full or associate professors in the NanoScience Technology Center (www.nanoscience.ucf.edu) to build on existing interdisciplinary expertise in nanoscale science in energy, photonics, imaging, quantum computing, nanomaterials and biomolecular science. The Center is emphasizing the recruitment of senior faculty but exceptional candidates who are theoreticians will also be considered for tenure-track positions. Candidates who have an interest in commercial applications of their work or existing commercial ventures are encouraged to apply. Review of candidates will be ongoing. Please send application with curriculum vitae, summary of research plans, and three or more references to: Ms. Rajeswari Natarajan, Assistant Director, 12424 Research Parkway, Suite 400, Orlando, FL 32826 (rnataraj@mail.ucf.edu). UCF is an Affirmative Action Employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. UCF makes all application materials, including transcripts, and all search materials available for public review upon request, as provided by Florida's open records law.