This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This project involves the renovation of the Drexel University Microfabrication Facility (MFF). Parts of the facility will be renovated to the standards of Class 100 and Class 1000 clean rooms. While the MFF houses a number of micro-fabrication and nano-fabrication instruments acquired through recent Major Research Instrumentation awards and other sources, the existing MFF is a low-dust environment rather than a true cleanroom and this limits the types of research that can be done there.
The renovated facility will be used for research in the areas of micro- and nanofluidics, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems and Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems, bioreactors, tissue engineering, biomechanics and biophysics, biosensors, lab-on-a-chip technology, surgical engineering, neuroengineering, optoelectronics, solar cells and alternative energy, colloidal suspension dynamics, and novel nanoelectronic devices, all of which require micro- and nanofabrication.
The facility provides research infrastructure. The facility will be used by researchers from both Drexel and the wider Philadelphia region. The project will support the research of a number of young faculty members from several different engineering departments. The users of the renovated facility will include undergraduates, graduate students and post-doctoral research associates. The MFF will be also be used in a number of outreach programs, including training and mentoring K-12 teachers and students from the Delaware Valley region.
PI: Hongseok (Moses) Noh, Drexel University Period: 10/1/2010 ~3/31/2013 The objective of this project was to upgrade and renovate the Drexel Microfabrication Facility (MFF) to support rapidly growing research activities, and to facilitate the integration of researchers. The Drexel MFF (1900 ft2) housed a number of microfabrication instruments such as a mask aligner, inductively-coupled plasma etcher, e-beam/filament evaporators, SEM-nanomanipulator, and an optical profilometer. However, the facility was not a classified cleanroom facility, which is essential for high-quality micro- and nanofabrication processes. We proposed to upgrade the MFF to a classified cleanroom, to expand the space, and to install appropriate cleanroom fixtures such as fume hoods, lab benches, and cabinets. The project was completed in September, 2013 with NSF fund and Drexel's cost sharing. The renovated MFF (2400 ft2) has a class 100 modular cleanroom for photolithography and a class 10,000 space for general microfabrication. The renovated MFF will benefit many current and future research activities in the areas of micro- and nanofluidics, MEMS and NEMS, bioreactors, tissue engineering, biomechanics and biophysics, biosensors, lab-on-a-chip, surgical engineering, neuroengineering, optoelectronics, solar cell and alternative energy, colloidal suspension dynamics, and novel nanoelectronic devices, which necessitate micro- and nanofabrication. A total of 15 faculty members from 4 colleges and 7 departments have participated in this proposal as PI/co-PIs and senior personnel. The renovated MFF will greatly improve the quality and expand the scope of many research and research training activities by providing a modernized and easily-accessible microfabrication facility to researchers at Drexel and in the Greater Philadelphia area. The combination of 2-D and 3-D microfabrication facilities that will be housed in the renovated MFF will provide a powerful microscale manufacturing infrastructure to many research activities at Drexel University and other institutions in the Greater Philadelphia area. This shared cleanroom facility will also contribute to improving our ability to recruit and retain outstanding faculty and graduate students and will increase research funding from both government agencies and the private sector. The renovated Microfabrication Facility will have impact on Drexel’s education and outreach programs as well. Lab classes of several existing courses will be held in the renovated cleanroom facility allowing students to have hands-on experience with diverse microfabrication techniques. The renovated Microfabrication Facility will also benefit Drexel’s diverse outreach programs such as NSF-supported Research Experience for Teachers (RET), Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and NSF GK-12. The proposed infrastructure improvements to the MFF will permit faculty to offer more hands-on practical instruction in microfabrication.
