A major challenge in nanotechnology is wafer-scale assembly of nano/bio molecules with the high packing density Understanding and modeling the mechanics of the cell is one of the major challengesin current nanotechnology.. A composite electric field and the forces induced on molecules to achieve their assembly, will be will be analyzed with the inmmersedImmersed FEM method. Imaging methods will be accompaniedcombinedused to investigate the assembly results. , and yet probably most rewarding, tasks of the present centurynext few decades. The task is complex, for the mechanical behavior emerges through an interaction of a hierarchy of scales, and it is essential for models to reflect these scales so that they can eventually become "first-principles" models that enable predictions of a large variety of mechanical behavior. The intellectual merits will beare the following3D simulation tools to be developed will span three scaless: (1) wafer-scale assembly of nano/bio molecules; (2) mechanics of bio-filament suspensions; and development of imaging tools to enable imaging by for SEM,, AFTEM, and AFM; (3) development of modeling simulation tools for assembly process modeling; and (4) understanding of electric field driven forces. coarse-grained models of the entire cell. An hierarchical modeling approach will be taken bewhere: a) material properties of bio-filaments will be passed from the atomic scale to the bio-filament suspension scale, and b) the effective properties of the active cell material will be passed on to the continuum scale simulations of cell migration by coarse graining the bio-filament suspension simulations. Concurrent multiscale coupling schemes will be developed at two levels: a) . Although information will be transferred between the scales primarily by passing property information, concurrent coupling schemes linking continuum mechanics to molecular mechanics will be developed that enable direct coupling of atomistic motions to biofiber properties in some applications, and b) a new hybrid simulation scheme that solves the continuum equations for cell motion and concurrently resolves the local cytoskeletal structure by performing bio-filament suspension simulations.Individual molecular devices will be developed and tested foras bio/chemical sensors.A novel NEMS device to measure cellular forces, being fabricated in our group, will be used for the measurements of traction forces and the simultaneous imaging of the fibrous structure of the cell. This will initiate the development of molecular scale bio/chemical sensors in a massthat ultimately could be mass-producedproducible way. the simulation of cell motility.. Also, at a larger scale, we will develop new models to obtain coarse-grained active stresses from mechanical models of bio-filament suspensions, thereby accounting for bio-fluid-structure effects, electrostatic interactions, thermal behavior and polymerization and depolymerization.
