Characterization of GaAs nanowire solutions in a microfluidic system
Contact:
Maria Dimaki, senior researcher, madi@nanotech.dtu.dk, 45255829
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Figure 1: Schematic design of the device. |
Nanowires are due to their dimensions and physical properties extremely valuable for many applications in engineering and physics. There are many types of nanowires, e.g. GaAs or silicon nanowires. These are usually grown vertically on a substrate and a variety of methods then exist to transfer the grown nanowires to a device in order to exploit their properties. Direct growth of the nanowires on the device is also possible, but the nature of the growth method makes this fabrication process expensive and therefore unsuitable for mass production.
As a result, various manipulation methods for nanowires have been utilized in order to place them on specified locations on devices, e.g. pick-and-place, surface modification, electrical and magnetic fields. For these methods to be controllable, it is important to know the exact characteristics of the nanowires in terms of dimensions and physical properties (dielectric properties, magnetic properties, surface properties, etc).
In this project you will investigate the movement of GaAs nanowires with various surface modifications inside a microfluidic channel under the influence of an electrical field. You will be measuring the velocity of the nanowires as a function of voltage generating the electric field. Investigation of the liquid movement without nanowires under the influence of the field will also be conducted in order to help you interpret your data. The device you will be using is shown schematically in figure 1.
You will learn to fabricate this device (also consider improvement of the design) and use it for the measurements, that are conducted under an optical microscope. Data is collected in the form of compressed AVI files that are then processed manually to extract the nanowire velocity values. Improvement of the data extraction can also be a part of this project, though it is not a requirement.