Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Structure-property-function relationships play a central role in science and engineering research. Design, fabrication and control of micro/nanostructures are significantly important for developing innovative metamaterials, energy materials and biomaterials, and their applications in MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), electronics, energy devices, tissue engineering and biomedical microdevices. As micro/nanofabrication technologies advance rapidly, there are unprecedented opportunities for researchers to explore the fundamentals and applications of structure-property-function relationships of novel structured materials. We envision that emerging is an era of a new class of structurally controlled precision materials. The requested equipment, a 3D lithography micro/nanofabrication system, enables researchers to precisely fabricate and control micro/nanostructures to be desired, which will enable many new novel functions of materials and devices. The requested equipment represents a significant technological advancement in the field of nanotechnology, if funded, which will facilitate many leading edge research activities in Canada, and will have great potential in resulting in breakthrough discoveries in fundamentals and applications of materials science and engineering. The requested equipment will be open for public access and will also provide tremendous training opportunities to Canada's next generation mechanical and materials engineers.