Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Investigations on principle issues related to Micro and Nano Devices. In this proposal the following main objectives will be investigated: Theoretical and experimental researches to investigate the physical properties of nano-structures like: a) Development of an innovative nanowire-based gas sensor arrays. The idea employs unique ionization energy of gas molecules to distinguish the unknown gas type. The operation principle of the device differs from conventional field-effect devices at which electric fields modulate the conduction through the channel. Instead, the electric field is used to initiate conductance through an ionization process. The technical goal of this work is to study the various parameters involved in ionization of gaseous elements and compounds in an ultra high electric energy density region. Also the carrier transport mechanisms will be investigated within this novel device. This work requires developing software tool to model and design the device followed by the fabrication and characterization. b) Studies of 2-D silicon based LEDs. It is shown that silicon will become direct band-gap semiconductor at low dimensions, make it suitable to fabricate mass-productions of non-expensive optical devices. The electrical properties of these tiny structures, produced from silicon, need to be analyzed and evaluated precisely. c) Porous metallic films have interesting optical properties and are promising structures for applications principally as photonic materials in the area of telecommunication and optical networking. In this project we focus on the fabrication, characterization   (morphological, optical and electrical properties) of macroporous gold and silver films created from colloidal crystal templates.