NIRT: Active Nanophotofluidic Systems for Single Molecule/Particle Analysis

0708599Erickson, David c .这项NSF-NIRT奖的核心是将纳米光子学、纳米流体学、纳米材料和单分子物理学积极地整合到一个新领域，这里称之为“纳米光子学”。该团队由来自康奈尔大学和罗切斯特大学的研究人员组成，他们带来了独特的个人专业知识，形成了一个综合的多学科研究项目，以利用我们新开发的50nm宽曝光模式可以实现的极高光强度。槽波导?利用极化和散射/吸附力进行光流体镊子和推进，并展示一系列新的活性纳米单分子和多粒子分析工具。该计划分为三个重点研究领域：1)发展对纳米尺度上电磁和流体动力学耦合的更好的基本理解，以展示更广泛的纳米光流体传输架构的核心要素；2)展示迄今为止开发的最坚定的分离机制；3)开发研究溶液中单个蛋白质折叠动力学的新机制。将光子元件作为有源元件集成到微和纳米流体器件中代表了一个很大程度上尚未开发的领域，它可能会产生重大影响，可以扩展到一个广泛的新型光子驱动微流体器件中，其中使用电信行业已经开发的高速元件进行快速，基于网络的粒子操作。这样的平台可能会在纳米组装等新兴领域得到应用（提供光镊的所有优点，但速度更快，精度更高）。该计划的一个基本部分是推广和教育战略，包括：1)通过康奈尔大街科学计划开发一系列综合教育单元，分发给全国的K-12教室；2)为纽约北部地区举办跨学科纳米科学和工程系列研讨会。该系列研讨会将吸引来自两所大学以及纽约州北部的本科院校的与会者。这些演讲也将发布在一个专门的网站上供下载。来自目标院校的学生也将有机会在一个专门的网站上提出问题，演讲者或pi将直接回答这些问题。本研究与NSF活性纳米结构、纳米器件和系统架构研究主题相一致。

0708599Erickson, David C.This NSF-NIRT award is centered around the active integration of nanophotonics, nanofluidics, nanomaterials and single molecule physics into a new field, refered herein as ''Nanophotofluidics''. The assembled team consists of researchers from Cornell University and the University of Rochester bringing distinct individual expertise to form the integrated, multidisciplinary research program to exploit the extremely high optical intensities achievable in our newly developed 50nm wide exposed mode ?slot waveguides? to perform optofluidic tweezing and propulsion (by exploiting polarization and scattering/adsorption forces) and demonstrate a series of new active nanoscopic single molecule and multi-particle analytical tools. Intellectual MeritThis program is divided into three focused research areas: 1) develop a better fundamental understanding of the coupling of electromagnetics and hydrodynamics on the nanoscale to demonstrate the core elements of a broader nanophotofluidic transport architecture, 2) demonstrate the most resolute separation mechanism developed to date, and 3) develop a new mechanism for investigating single protein folding dynamics in solution. Broader Impacts Integrating photonic elements as active components in micro- and nano-fluidic devices represents a largely unexplored area that could have significant impact that could be extended into a broad new class of photonically driven microfluidic devices where rapid, network based particle manipulation is performed using the high-speed components already developed by the telecommunications industry. Such platforms may find application in emerging fields such as nano-assembly (offering all the advantages of optical tweezing but more rapidly and with sub-wavelength precision). A fundamental part of this program is an outreach and education strategy consisting of: 1) The development of a series of integrated educational units distributed to K-12 classrooms nationwide through the Cornell Main Street Science program and 2) An interdisciplinary nanoscience and engineering seminar series for the upstate New York area. This seminar series will attract attendees from both universities as well as undergraduate institutions in upstate New York. The talks will also be posted on a dedicated website for download. Students from the target institutions will also be given the opportunity to post questions on a dedicated website which will be answered directly by the speaker or the PIs.This research is well aligned with both NSF Active Nanostructures and Nanoscale Devices and System Architecture research themes.