Winter 2009 E-Newsletter • CNSI at UC Santa Barbara

What's New at CNSI

New CNSI Researchers and Staff

The CNSI community has grown in recent months with the addition of researchers Paul Atzberger (Mathematics and Engineering) and Claudia Gottstein (Biological Nanostructures Laboratory) plus CNSI staff Teddy Thomas (Financial Analyst). (More...)

New Facilities in Elings Hall

The first floor Lobby in Elings Hall has been updated to include a lounge area. Feel free to stop by and make yourself at home!

OPV Lab

The organic photo voltaic lab (OPV) is a multi-user facility that will be housed in the clean room on the 3rd floor of Elings Hall. There is mounting interest in organic solar cell research as alternative energy sources at UCSB. Unlike inorganic solar cells, organic solar cells are flexible, lightweight and economical to fabricate.

With the addition of the multi-user OPV facility at Elings Hall, research groups across campus will gain access to the equipment required to conduct research in organic solar cells. A recharge rate will be determined for usage to offset maintenance cost, support and equipment upgrades. The OPV lab is planned to have a solar cell test station, a thermal evaporator for depositing metal electrodes, and a spin coater for thin film preparation from solution enclosed in several connected glove-boxes. The lab will accommodate research requiring an inert atmosphere. This new facility will enable researchers to design and test large area organic solar devices.

CNSI Resources

High Performance Computing

CNSI is the home of the largest High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters on campus (our Dell cluster was one of the Top500 computers in the world). We provide a variety of systems for your computational needs, from the occasional to the heavy-duty user. (More...)

Large Format Poster Printer

CNSI affiliated groups and researchers have access 24 hours a day to a Hewlett Packard 42" large format poster printer to create posters for conferences, meetings and other projects. (More...)

Funding Opportunities

CNSI Graduate Student Fellowship

CNSI is please to announce the 2008 recipients of the CNSI Graduate Student Fellowship: Zoltan Mester (Chemical Engineering) and Jinpeng Wang (Mechanical Engineering). Each fellowship will provide $50k of student support per year for three years. Read more about the 2008 fellowship recipients. (More...)

CNSI Research Seed Grants

Congratulations to the CNSI Faculty Research Seed Grant award recipients for the funding period of February 1, 2009 - January 31, 2010:

• "Tracking Molecular Motors with Nanoscale Optical Encoders"
  Everett A. Lipman, Department of Physics
• "Nanoscale Characterization of Polymer Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells"
  Thuc-Quyen Nguyen, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
• "Characterization of Nanofluidic Channels with Total Internal Reflectance Fluorescence Microscopy (TIRFM)"
  Sumita Pennathur, Department of Mechanical Engineering
• "Therapeutic Molecular Shuttles"
  Luke Theogarajan, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

(More...)

Facility Research Equipment Matching Funds Program

CNSI is pleased to announce the recipient of the Facility Research Equipment Matching Funds Program:

Proposal: "Acquisition of a NMR Instrument for Imaging, Diffusion, and In-Situ Flow Measurements"

Match: Funds towards the purchase of an additional NMR for the CNSI NMR Facility

Faculty: Brad Chmelka, Chemical Engineering

Next Application Deadline

May 15, 2009

Program Highlights

Workshop on Spin Dynamics in Diamond

February 2-3, 2009
California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) faculty members and a team of researchers from across the country and abroad met to explore the promising use of diamond for quantum information processing and communication. Faculty and students from the Kavli Institute on Nanoscience at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ames Laboratory of the US Department of Energy, and Microsoft Station Q joined UCSB researchers at the event.

CNSI Allosphere Represented at TED Conference

February 5, 2009
Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Director of the Allopshere and CNSI faculty member, was invited to deliver a demonstration of the Allosphere capabilities at the TED Conference in Long Beach, CA. The TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference salutes individuals pursuing "ideas worth spreading," amongst whom Bill Gates and Al Gore have presented.

Additional Information can be found at the Allopshere Website.

VEECO Announces 7th Annual International Science Conference at UCSB

July 28-31, 2009
Call for Papers (Deadline Extended to April 15, 2009)

Celebrating its seventh year, the conference provides the optimum forum for academic and industrial scientists to share information and exchange ideas on a wide variety of advanced nanotechnology topics, ranging from novel imaging approaches and unique material characterization to combining AFM with other technologies, such as confocal microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. This year there is also a special session on emerging AFM markets, such as energy generation, storage and conservation.

The 2009 Seeing at the Nanoscale conference is chaired by David Awschalom, UCSB, and co-chaired by James Gimzewski, UCLA. In addition to invited presentations from each session chair, the conference will also feature oral presentations by Jun Hu of the Institute of Applied Physics, China; Hirofumi Yamada of Kyoto University, Japan; and co-chair James Gimzewski.

The conference is co-sponsored by Veeco and the California NanoSystems Institute at UCSB.

Additional Information can be found at the Seeing at the Nanoscale VII Website.