Organic Thin Films Suspended Across Microfabricated Structures

这项由分析和表面化学计划支持的学院早期职业发展(CALEAR)项目旨在专注于稳定薄膜的合成和表征，这些薄膜将被悬浮在微细加工结构中。在这项为期四年的持续资助期间，阿肯色大学的Fritsch-Faules教授和她的学生将测试这些结构在传感和生物测定应用的新型设备中的应用。将建造亚微米结构来支撑人造生物膜等悬浮膜。无机衬底将既是绝缘体又是导体，这取决于它们在这些结构中的特定功能。对这些表面受限材料的研究将通过这些系统的电场强度、溶剂特性和离子组成等变量来探索它们的稳定性和功能。Fritsch-Faules教授将包括一系列旨在让K-12年级的学生参与的活动。重点是培养这些学生的高阶思维能力和解决问题的能力，这是科学和数学的一部分。将利用社区接入电视和万维网将这些节目传播给不同的受众。用具有支撑悬浮薄膜的几何形状的井来构建新的三维微加工结构的能力将是这一职业研究项目的重要成果。这些悬浮薄膜的表征将是一个具有挑战性的科学和工程问题，这取决于Fritsch-Faules教授在电分析化学和微制造科学方面的独特背景。她的综合教育计划同样雄心勃勃，它有可能在短期内对她所在地理区域的K-12学生产生巨大的社会影响，并在长期内对更广泛分布的队列产生巨大的社会影响。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project, supported in the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program, aims to focus on the synthesis and characterization of stable thin films that will be suspended across microfabricated structures. During the tenure of this four-year continuing grant, Professor Fritsch- Faules and her students at the University of Arkansas will test these structures for application in novel devices for sensing and for biomimetric applications. Submicron structures will be constructed to support suspended films such as artificial biomembranes. The inorganic substrates will be both insulators and conductors depending upon the particular function they are intended to serve in these structures. Studies of these surface- confined materials will probe their stability and function with variables including electric field strength, solvent character and ionic composition of these systems. Professor Fritsch-Faules will include a host of activities that are designed to involve students in the K-12 grades. Educating these students in the high-order thinking abilities and problem-solving skills that are part of science and mathematics will be emphasized. Community Access Television and the World Wide Web will be used to disseminate such programs to diverse audiences. The ability to construct new three-dimensional microfabricated structures with wells having geometries for supporting suspended thin films will be an important outcome of this CAREER research project. The characterization of these suspended thin films will be a challenging scientific and engineering problem that depends on Professor Fritsch-Faules' unique background in electroanalytical chemistry and in microfabrication science. Her integrated educational plan is no less ambitious and it has the potential for immense societal impact upon the K-12 students in her immediate geographic area in the near-term and upon a much more broadly distributed cohort in the long-term.