CNF-REU interns present their research and head to the future

Alexander Pechenik, associate director of the Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF), speaks to student interns in the CNF Research Experience for Undergraduates program during the program's Cornell convocation, Aug. 1, in the Statler Ballroom. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

By Allegra Giovine '06

"How long will this nanotechnology craze continue?" Alexander Pechenik, associate director of Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF), asked the 12 interns involved in the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program hosted at Cornell this summer by the National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN). The students listened as Pechenik made opening remarks about the future of careers in nanotechnology, while they waited to give run-throughs of their research presentations in preparation for the NNUN convocation in Santa Barbara, Calif.

"It's dangerous to get into an engineering area where, after graduation, you don't have a job," Pechenik admitted during the CNF REU convocation Aug. 1 in the Statler Ballroom. But in the area of nanotechnology, he said, "there are an enormous amount of devices to be made."

During the course of the 10-week CNF REU program that began in June, the students spent their time working on various projects involved with nanotechnology, which, essentially, is the field of research and development of technology at atomic and molecular levels. Typical nanotechnology research involves matter no bigger than 100 nanometers in length, a nanometer being equivalent to one billionth of a meter.

From June through August, 12 of the 48 NNUN REU interns worked at CNF, one of five national nanofabrication sites working in conjunction with NNUN and supported by the National Science Foundation. Every year the NNUN REU convocation rotates its site so that the summer interns visit at least two of the five facilities -- one at which they do the majority of their research and another where the final convocation is held. The other participating facilities are at Pennsylvania State University, Howard University, Stanford University and the University of California-Santa Barbara, where this year's NNUN convocation was held.

Presenting their research on campus, the 2003 CNF REU interns, representing 11 universities, demonstrated a range of areas that nanotechnology can be applied to, including pharmaceutics, radioactive decay and optics. Their topics had titles such as "Laser Lysis of Liposomes in a Microfluidic Device" (by Olabunmi Agboola of the University of Illinois, who worked with principal investigator Antje Baeumner, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering) and "Organic Thin Film Transistors for Sensor Applications" (by Michael Campolongo of Rowan University, who worked with George Malliaras, assistant professor of materials science and engineering).

Andrew Newton of Kansas State University, for instance, showed how the development of technology at a microscopic scale has great practical advantages. In his presentation, "Ultrasonically Driven Microneedle Arrays," Newton (who worked with Amit Lal, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering) showed that microneedles, which penetrate only the upper layers of the skin, are promising for the future of medical practices, because they alleviate the problem of pain caused by commonly used hypodermic needles that penetrate deeper layers of skin.

The interns moved to Santa Barbara this past week for three days, during which they and other NNUN program participants presented the culmination of their summer's research. Pechenik assured the CNF REU students, before they left for the Santa Barbara convocation, that their summer's research experience at Cornell will "serve [them] well in future careers."