ISS: Plasmonic Bubble Enabled Nanoparticle Deposition under Micro-Gravity

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Novel technologies that are simple and cost-effective for fabricating highly sensitive biosensors may significantly benefit a wide range of important applications, such as early detection of epidemic/pandemic infectious disease, cancers, and other biological agents. A major challenge for such detection is the low concentration of the target molecules. This project will leverage the fluid flow around a thermal bubble on a surface, concentrating and depositing the target molecules in the liquid sample, to enhance their detectability. The PI will perform microgravity experiments at the International Space Station to investigate the concentration/deposition processes, which will enable the development of improved sensing techniques for disease detection, cancer diagnosis and environmental monitoring. Given the potential transformative impacts for terrestrial applications, this project is aligned with the mission of CASIS to leverage space research to benefit life on earth. This research project will also educate and train graduate and undergraduate students from under-represented groups at Notre Dame. Through this project, the PI will cultivate a future workforce for the U.S. manufacturing and healthcare industries. The PI will also outreach to the local high schools and participate in local area science events to extend the outreach of this project. This project aims to understand the flow phenomena around a thermal bubble generated on a surface by a laser excitation. The flow pattern around the bubble can collect and eventually deposit colloidal particles in the liquid onto the surface. The overarching goal of this project is to understand the flow and deposition mechanism in order to control the deposition of suspended particles and thus enable new technologies for sensing applications. The PI will combine the microgravity experiments in the ISS and comparative terrestrial experiments complemented by multi-physics modeling to achieve this understanding. The micro-gravity environment in the ISS will provide a unique platform to unlock the fundamental mechanism of bubble nucleation, growth, and detachment. The lack of thermal convection in the ISS will allow the decoupling of the contribution of Marangoni effect from thermal convection effect to elucidate their roles in collecting colloidal particles and depositing them on the surface. This research will improve the understanding of the fundamental opto-thermal-fluidic mechanism of the thermal bubble deposition process, which will contribute to advancing the fields of nanoscale interactions, thermofluids and biosensing. This research project will also educate and train graduate and undergraduate students from under-represented groups at Notre Dame. Through this project, the PI will cultivate a future workforce for the U.S. manufacturing and healthcare industries. The PI will also outreach to the local high schools and participate in local area science events to extend the outreach of this project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.