This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award supports the acquisition of a mask aligner for micro/nano-fabrication. The instrument will support ongoing and future micro/nano-scale fabrication-based research and education by multiple research groups in engineering, physics, chemistry, molecular biology, and food science at Arkansas State University-Jonesboro (ASU-J). The instrument will be used to support research focused on energy harvesting devices, sensors and actuators, induced electromagnetic fields onto photonic matter, and detection/manipulation of cells and molecular biology. Research in renewable energy with micro/nano-fabrication will use this system to allow the study of energy harvesting/efficient devices ? concentrated photovoltaic, thermoelectric, and photonic displays and crystals ? for enhanced in energy conversion efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Research will also use this equipment to study the effects of micro-patterned structures on the cell and molecular biology. Additionally, the requested mask aligner will be used frequently for nano-imprinting lithography in more in-depth nano-scaled atomic applications.
This instrument will expand and enhance research projects and opportunities within the Center for Efficient and Sustainable Use of Resources (CESUR) at ASU-J and provide multi-disciplinary research experiences for faculty and graduate and undergraduate students in engineering, physics, chemistry, molecular biology, and food science programs. Instruction will be impacted via the development of new activities in courses that make use of the instrument. Students enrolled in the newly developed Master of Science in Engineering (MSEng) program on ASU-J campus, will utilize this equipment frequently for both R&D and instructional purposes for micro/nano-scaled device development. Enhanced research opportunities will also increase the University?s effort to recruit and retain students and faculty from traditionally underrepresented groups.
PI successful completed the facilitation of the proposed instrument of a mask aligner in his research laboratory in ASU. As of 02/28/2015, 206 Mask Aligner of OAI is successfully installed and fully functional. PI, research assistants and department technicians have been become as a power user after completion of two days basis technical training. Experimental protocols and recipes have been presented in regular group meeting and documented in written description such as laboratory notebooks or presentation files. Calibration has been checking regularly in every six months, and results on alignment and intense/wavelength exposure light will be kept as a digital raw data. During the process of purchasing 206 Mask Aligner, PI found a mask aligner that had a more competitive price and met all of technical requirement addressed initially. The vendor, Optical Associated Inc. (OAI) (www.oainet.com/index.html), is a domestic manufacturer and has abundant experience with and services many academic customers. The base cost of the instrument quoted by OAI is about 50% less than that of others imported from the Europe. The cost savings allowed ASU PIs to purchase other instrumentation that would greatly benefit the project. In this reason, ASU submitted the re-allocation of budget justification. It reflected a plan to purchase several more pieces of instrumentation, all of which forms a single integrated instrument to achieve collaborative research goals in micro-fabrication and modern application, all of those are not currently available at ASU. NSF reviewed and approved this request at 02/04/2013. With accordance to the approved budget relocation, ASU PIs have facilitated some additional instrumentation in order to form a unified micro-fabrication system with 206 Mask Aligner as a center. Additional instrumentation that already installed or issued orders are; Surface topology profiler, X-ray diffraction system, Chemical Bench, Clean room.
