The project will produce advances in the science and engineering of micro-fabrication technology and the utilization of nanoscale materials to build medical micro-devices. The research facility will provide engineers with prototyping tools and nanoscale materials needed to reproducibly build miniature devices. The devices will allow investigating new approaches to medical science and enable critical in vivo measurements never made before. The facility offers researchers a means to economically prototype next-generation devices and to incorporate nanotechnology into biology and medicine. The first nanomaterials to be used in the facility will be CNT arrays, ribbon, and yarn (that are already available at UC) as well as commercially available magnetic nanoparticles. CNT thread, made using cm long nanotubes, will be lightweight, stronger than steel, pliable, inert, nontoxic, and electrically and thermally conductive. Initial devices to be fabricated will utilize these materials for miniature carbon electronics, electric motors, actuators, carbon wire, sensors, antennae, and actuators for inside and outside the body. These microdevices will monitor and repair the body in ways that were not possible before.
