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News & Events

Functional materials expert Mohammad Malakooti joins NanoES

We are excited to welcome Mohammad Malakooti to UW as an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and NanoES faculty member. The Mechanical Engineering department and NanoES partnered to help bring Malakooti to UW from Carnegie Mellon University where he was a research scientist studying stretchable electronics and flexible devices for wearable computing and human-computer interactions. At UW, Malakooti is developing new methodologies to synthesize and ultimately manufacture stable, mechanically robust, and functional nanomaterials that can be integrated into durable macrostructures in ways that harness their unique nanoscale properties.

Semiconductor and solar industry veteran named UW Washington Nanofabrication Facility Director

Headshot of Maria Huffman in a navy blue sweater.

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Maria Huffman is the new WNF director! Huffman joins WNF from Lund University in Sweden, where she headed the Lund Nano Lab, an open-access nanofabrication facility. Previously, Huffman spent over 30 years working in the semiconductor and solar industries in a variety of research and development as well as manufacturing roles.

Research Impact: Developing a clean, scalable approach to synthesizing advanced materials

Elizabeth Rasmussen, a mechanical engineering graduate student in the lab of NanoES faculty member Igor Novosselov, was recently profiled by the UW mechanical engineering department. Rasmussen is developing a clean, scalable approach to synthesizing advanced materials, setting the stage for innovation in batteries, targeted drug delivery and more. MOtiF Materials, a team led by Rasmussen and whose technology is based on Rasmussen’s graduate work, won the $15,000 grand prize at the 2019 Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge back in April.

Scientists can now control thermal profiles at the nanoscale

In a paper published online July 30 by the journal ACS Nano, David Masiello, NanoES faculty member and professor of chemistry, and colleagues from Rice University and Temple University, report a new breakthrough on controlling the thermal profiles of materials at the nanoscale. The team of researchers designed and tested an experimental system that uses a near-infrared laser to actively heat two gold nanorod antennae — metal rods designed and built at the nanoscale — to different temperatures. The nanorods are so close together that they are both electromagnetically and thermally coupled. Yet the team measured temperature differences between the rods as high as 20 degrees Celsius. By simply changing the wavelength of the laser, they could also change which nanorod was cooler and which was warmer, even though the rods were made of the same material.

Defects Wanted; Apply Here – Q&A with physicist Kai-Mei Fu

NanoES faculty member and professor of electrical engineering and physics recently sat down with APS Physics. Kai-Mei studies the properties of atomic defects in materials with the goal of using these normally unwanted flaws to create quantum technologies for secure communication. She is also the co-chair of QuantumX, a University of Washington initiative seeking to facilitate and support activities that will accelerate quantum discoveries and technologies

First-ever visualizations of electrical gating effects on electronic structure could lead to longer-lasting devices

UW physicists David Cobden and Xiaodong Xu, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Warwick, developed a technique to measure the energy and momentum of electrons in operating microelectronic devices made of atomically thin — so-called 2D — materials. Their findings, published last week in the journal Nature could lead to new, finely tuned, high-performance electronic devices.