First annual Nanoscale Science and Engineering Symposium held May 26, 2009

The Center held its first annual Nanoscale Science and Engineering Symposium on the University of Denver Campus on May 26, 2009. There were over 60 attendees including upper administration at DU, industry representatives and faculty from across the university. Our four distinguished keynote speakers were:

• Dr. Gareth Eaton, John Evans Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry, “The Same and Not the Same: Nano and Macro”
• Dr. Konrad W. Lehnert, JILA Fellow, Associate Professor of Physics, University of Colorado and NIST, “Microwave cavity optomechanics: Measuring and cooling the motion of nanomechanical oscillators with microwave "light."”
• Dr. Jao van de Lagemaat, Sr. Scientist in the Chemical and Biosciences Center, NREL, “Plasmonics in Photovoltaics”
• Bud Frith, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology, “Update on ISO/TC 229 Nanotechnologies Standards Process”

Nine of our top graduate students from the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Physics and Astronomy, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical and Materials Engineering presented on the following topics:
• Brian Burks (Josh Stowe), “Probabilistic Molecular Dynamics Evaluation of the Stress-Strain Behavior of Polyethylene”
• John Galvin, “Amyloid Specific Dendrimers; Detectors and Protectors for Alzheimer’s Disease”
• Jon Belkowitz, “The Investigation of Nano SiO2 in the Cement Hydration Process”
• Sasha Down, “Making Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes a Commercial Reality”
• Alex Nardes, “Charge Transport in Nanostructured Organic Semiconductors"
• Azure Avery, “Thermoelectric Transport and Thermal Spin Currents in Ferromagnetic Films and Nanostructures”
• Tiffany Gustafson, “Toward Ultra-Sensitive Photoamplified Detection of Molecular Recognition Events on a Microcapillary Array Chip
• Kellen Sorauf, “Apparatus for Determining Distribution Coefficients of Nitrogen Heterocycles on Nanoparticles”
• Amir Rahafrooz, “Nanoprecision Controlled Batch Fabrication of Silicon Nanowires using Optical Micro-Lithography”

In addition we held a poster presentation giving our other graduate students an opportunity to showcase their research. Presentations included:
• Brian Bailey, “Lamination & Hole Transport Layers in Organic Photovoltaics”
• Dain Bassett, “Constructing and characterizing nanomagnetic arrays in search of Spin Ice”
• Arash Hajjam & Amir Rahafrooz, “Micromachined Resonant Sensors for Individual Aerosol Nano-particle Mass and Size Monitoring”
• Xin Jiang, “Monte Carlo modeling of hole transport in P3HT:PCBM blends”
• James Middleton, “Molecular Dynamic Simulations”
• Stephen Ray, “Understanding and controlling the kinetics of ADSL tetramer formation”
• Lucas Sawle, “A Statistical Mechanics Model of Beta Hairpins”
• Ajaya Sigdel, “Growth and characterization of transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) for Organic Solid State Lighting”
• Rubina Sultan, “Direct Measurements of Figure-of-Merit in Amorphous Silicon-based Thermoelectric thin films”
• Elyas Tawerghi, “Computational Studies on Effective Properties of Two-Phase Heterogeneous Random Media”
• Babak Tousifar & Amir Rahafrooz, j”Low-Cost Solar Energy Solutions Based on Silicon Micro/Nano-Particles”

This event was a great success and we look forward to next year’s symposium.

Attachment to this article: Symposium Booklet