The interdisciplinary research program aims to establish a fundamental understanding of interfacial/surface effects on the electronic and mechanical properties of nanoscale materials incorporated into devices. Surface chemistry to control the highly environment-sensitive responses of nanoscale materials, specifically single-walled carbon nanotubes will be developed, and synergistic computational and experimental studies of nanoscale surfaces and interfaces will be conducted. It is anticipated that this will lead to simple but effective chemical means to tune the electronic characteristics of carbon nanotube transistors and resonators Furthermore, these chemically tunable nanotubes will provide versatile building blocks suitable for developing engineering concepts and designs for novel nanoelectronic and electromechanical architectures.
The success of this NIRT project will provide diverse resources for research and education in multiple fields of science and engineering as well as new materials and devices from which integrated electronics and sensor technologies with unprecedented capabilities may arise. Enrichment of undergraduate and graduate course curricula and development of computational/modeling tools are also anticipated.
