January 2008 Newsletter

Welcome to the Newsletter of MEMS@MIT

This publication is the fourth issue of a quarterly update of events and research activities undertaken by the MEMS@MIT Center.

This newsletter is intended to support the Center's key objectives of fostering expertise, providing education, facilitating networking, and expanding teaming opportunities on new research efforts for the MIT MEMS/NEMS community and the Center's Industrial partners. In part, these goals will be accomplished by keeping you informed of upcoming Center events, the latest Center faculty research highlights, MEMS/NEMS seminar streaming videos, and other special features. We will also feature other MEMS/NEMS related events (e.g. , seminars, conferences) and reference websites worth visiting.

We hope you find the newsletter informative and relevant.

News Articles:

MEMS@MIT Open House - Fall 2007

MEMS@MIT Welcomes New Faculty Members

MNSS Seminar Series

Spring 2008 MEMS Center Open House

Spotlight on Dr. Hongshen Ma

MicroTAS 2007

Awards and Recognition 2007

MEMS@MIT Open House - Fall 2007

The Fall Open House for MEMS @ MIT was held Oct. 24-25, 2007 on the MIT campus. This event was the third of what will be a twice-a-year event associated with the MEMS@MIT industrial consortium. The format of the open house includes a day-long symposium where participants engage in a detailed exploration of a specific topic related to MEMS. On the second day, the Industrial Advisors Board (IAB) of MEMS@MIT meets in a closed-door session to learn of the newest activities in the Center, to discuss new research initiatives, and to provide guidance to the Center faculty. We also use this meeting to discuss teaming opportunities between member companies and MIT investigators on new research efforts. We have also begun to incorporate the poster session into the IAB Meeting. The poster session offers a forum where all the investigators associated with MEMS@MIT present posters on their latest work, spanning the entire activities of the center including BioMEMS, Optical MEMS, Power MEMS, Sensors and Actuators, and MEMS technology.

This Fall's symposium was entitled "Emerging Trends in MEMS/NEMS Manufacturing. " The event featured the following presentations:

Semiconductor Nanowires: Synthesis and Application — Professor Silvija Gradecak
Pattern-Dependent Modeling of Polymer Microfluidics Manufacturing Processes — Professor Duane Boning (co-author Hayden Taylor)
NanoStructured Materials — Professor Vladimir Bulovic
Lithography Beyond the 10-nm Frontier — Professor Karl Berggren
Thermal-Buoyancy Effect During the Carbon Nanotubes CVD Synthesis — Professor Jing Kong
Small-scale Nanopositioning Technologies that will Enable New Ways to Manufacture, Measure and Manipulate at the Micro- and Nano-scales — Professor Martin Culpepper
Nanostructured Origami — Professor George Barbastathis
Selective Self Assembly of Micro and Nano Systems — Professor Carol Livermore
Complexity in the Assembly of MEMS and Nanostructures — Professor Sang-Gook Kim

The slides for all presentations given at the symposium can be found on the members-only section of the MEMS@MIT website.

The IAB meeting was held the following morning. In this meeting, our industrial members heard about recent research activities from faculty in the Center.
Faculty overviews included the following:

An Integrated MEMS Turbine-generator — Professor Jeffrey Lang
Microfluidic Synthesis of Polymeric Nanoparticles — Professor Rohit Karnik
Micro Gas Analyzer — Professor Tayo Akinwande
Micro-Ionics for Portable Power Generation and Environmental Sensing — Professor Harry Tuller

During the late morning session, 2-minute focused presentations were given by each student/post-doctoral associate poster presenter. The meeting then temporarily adjourned to lunch and the poster session which included 10 posters on a wide range of topics.
The poster titles and authors are listed on the members-only section of the Center web site, and a copy of each poster can be downloaded from the site as well.

The IAB meeting concluded with a detailed discussion of internal Center activities, planned new programs, and feedback from the Board. Slides for all of the presentations can be found on the members only section.

MEMS@MIT Welcomes New Faculty Members

Professor Mehmet Fatih Yanik is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and the newest faculty member of MEMS@MIT. Professor Yanik received the SB degrees in electrical engineering and physics from MIT in 1999 and the MEng in electrical engineering and computer science in 2000. Dr. Yanik then pursued doctoral research at Stanford University, receiving the PhD in applied physics in 2006. His main areas of research include the development and applications of technologies for studying cellular processes; the application of photonic nanostructures for bio-sensing, nano-manipulation, and bio-spectroscopy usage.

Professor Roger Kamm is a senior faculty member in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biological Engineering and also joined the Center during the Fall. His research focuses on cell and molecular mechanics; microfluidic systems for angiogenesis, cell migration, and other tissue engineering applications.

Professor Evelyn Wang and Professor Rohit Karnik are among the newest faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and joined the MEMS@MIT Center this past year.

Professor Wang came to MIT from Bell Laboratories (New Jersey) where she worked as a postdoctoral associate after completing her doctoral program in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.
Her research interests include: MEMS/NEMS design and sensing, optical diagnostics, systems integration, and numerical modeling.
Her presentation to the MEMS@MIT IAB Meeting (April 18, 2007) was titled, MEMS Technology for Advanced Thermal Management.

Professor Karnik earned his PhD at UC, Berkeley and was a postdoctoral associate in Professor Robert Langer's group prior to joining the MechE Department. His research focuses on microfluidics,nanofluidics, and BioMEMS.
His talk to the MEMS@MIT Industrial Advisory Board (October 25, 2007) was titled, Microfluidic Synthesis of Polymeric Nanoparticles.

Up-coming Events

The MNSS (Micro/Nano-technology Seminar Series)

We are pleased to announce the MNSS Spring 2008 schedule:

February 28: Adoption of MEMS - Dr. Kurt Petersen (former CEO and co-founder, SiTime)
March 6: Dynamic Surfaces and Controlled Release with Layer-by-Layer Approaches - Prof. Paula Hammond, MIT
March 13: Programmable Self-assembly from Nano to Milli Scales - Prof. Karl Bohringer, University of Washington
March 20: TBA - Prof. Tom Russell, UMASS, Amherst
April 24: Micro- and Nanofluidics for Cellular Physiology Studies - Prof. Shuichi Takayama, University of Michigan
May 8: Senturia Prize Seminar

One of the highlights of the series is the seminar presented by the Senturia Prize winner in May. The Senturia Prize is awarded to a graduating Ph.D. student conducting research in the MEMS/NEMS field who has made substantial technical contributions to the field and to the research community in MEMS/NEMS at MIT. Past winners were Dr. Anastasios John Hart (2006) for his work on the synthesis of carbon nanotubes, and Dr. Jianping Fu (2007) for his work on nanofluidic devices for the rapid analysis of DNA and proteins.

Nominations are currently being accepted from students and faculty of the MEMS community. Please send all inquiries to senturia-prizeatmitdotedu.

All seminars are held on Thursday at 3pm in the RLE Conference Room, 36-428.

The MNSS is sponsored by the following:

MEMS@MIT | mtlweb.mit.edu/researchgroups/mems/
Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT | www.rle.mit.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering | www-me.mit.edu
Center for Engineering in Medicine,
BioMEMS Resource Center at MGH | http://cem.sbi.org/nv/Home.asp

Video archives of past MNSS presentations are available on the members-only section of the MEMS@MIT website. For more information on the MNSS series, please contact the MNSS Planning Committee: Professor Pat Doyle (ChemE) pdoyleatmitdotedu, Professor Carol Livermore (Mech E) livermoratmitdotedu, Professor Joel Voldman (RLE) voldmanatmitdotedu, or Anne Wasserman (MEMS@MIT) annewatmitdotedu or go to www.rle.mit.edu/mnss/.

Of Special Interest to the MEMS Community: MTL Seminar Series
Prof. Carl Hansen, University of British Columbia
Tues, April 15 at 4pm in 34-101, Edgerton Hall
Refreshments at 3:30pm
Prof. Hansen's group is focused on the development of new microsystems tools for biology and on the validation of these tools in the context of outstanding problems in biology and medicine. Through unprecedented integration and economy of scale, these microsystems tools will enable highly multiplexed measurements with increased throughput and dramatic savings in sample consumption and cost. Moreover, the unique physical properties of the micro-environment will be exploited to increase experimental precision and sensitivity, and to implement new types of measurements that are difficult, or impossible, in macroscopic devices. This work naturally lies at the interface of the physical sciences, engineering, and biology.
Current Areas of Research: Three areas of research are single cell manipulation and analysis, protein interaction and molecular diagnostics, and microfluidic-based structural biology. A variety of exciting research projects are currently available in these areas.

The Spring 2008 MEMS Center Open House

The Spring Open House for MEMS@MIT has been set for April 22-23, 2008 and will be held at the MIT campus. Information on the Open House will be continuously updated at the following location: http://mtlweb.mit.edu/mems/news.html. This open house is for members of the MIT community as well as members of the industrial consortium. We invite companies that wish to seriously consider joining the Center to contact the Center Director, Martin Schmidt (mems@mit.edu), to discuss your possible participation in this important event as a means to make an informed decision regarding whether Center membership makes sense for your company. This Spring's Open House will include a Symposium on MEMS for Implantable Medical Devices as well as briefings on several new research programs and a discussion of opportunities for research partnering that we see in the near term.

Spotlight on Dr. Hongshen Ma

Dr. Hongshen Ma Dr. Hongshen (Hong) Ma was the second graduate to be honored to deliver the MTL Doctoral Dissertation Seminar, one of the highlights of the MTL Seminar Series. "The MTL Doctoral Dissertation Seminar is intended to recognize finishing or recently finished doctoral students within MTL who have done outstanding research, have a strong research vision, and have the presentation skill necessary to communicate that vision to a broad audience. Students are chosen based on a nominating letter from their advisors, which comments on the impact of the work and on the student's skill as a presenter, and also on a 200-word written statement from the student describing their research. " (Prof. Joel Dawson, Chair, MTL Seminar Series Committee.) For more information on the series, please go to: http://mtlweb.mit.edu/news/seminars/index.html.

Dr. Ma joined the MIT MEMS community as a graduate student under the direction of Professor Alex Slocum (in conjunction with Professor Jeff Lang) and continues as a post-doctoral associate in the Precision Engineering Research Group.

Dr. Ma responded generously to our request for the interview which follows.

(m@m)Could you give us some background on your previous degree work and share your impressions about those programs? What led you to the MEMS/NEMS area, particularly focusing on design?

(hm) My undergraduate degree was in Engineering Physics from the University of British Columbia. It's an engineering degree offered by the Physics department which allowed students to get the fundamentals of Physics while taking their specialization courses in an engineering department. In my case, the area of specialization was Electrical Engineering. I really liked this approach because it allowed me to see how fundamental ideas are translated into practical designs in engineering. This is probably where I decided to focus on design.
I did my masters at the MIT Media Lab, which is a fantastic place with very creative people. The part that I liked most about the Media Lab was the willingness to think big ideas and to examine the fundamental assumptions that have to be changed in order to make them happen.
I moved to EECS to pursue a PhD in the MEMS/NEMS area. I think this is a fantastic area for research since discoveries of new physical phenomena often arise when geometrical parameters are scaled until traditional continuum models break down.

How have your interests evolved?

My interests have generally revolved around developing new measurement and sensing modalities. What has changed is my approach. When I first started, my view of MEMS/NEMS fabrication consisted entirely of things that you could do in a semiconductor fab. As my thesis evolved, I realized that many traditional manufacturing materials and processes (e.g. CNC machining, waterjetting, laser etching, PCB manufacturing) could be combined with tools in semiconductor manufacturing machines to fabricate devices in much simpler ways.

Have you had any mentors and/or role models in the field? What influence might one see of them in your work? How has their inspiration affected your work?

My main mentors have been my direct research supervisor, Prof. Alex Slocum, and Prof. Jeff Lang, who I worked closely with in the last couple of years. Alex is an endless source of new ideas and positive energy. At the same time, he stresses focus and cutting out the distractions. Jeff is wonderful to work with because of his humility and his ability to breakdown problems into bite-size portions. The combination of Alex and Jeff has been great for keeping my project on-track and moving forward.

Have you had the opportunity to mentor others? If so, could you describe such a situation and talk a little about what it meant (means) to you to mentor another person. What have you learned from your mentors about mentoring in this field?

I've had the fortune to work with a number of excellent UROPs and students in my class (2.996/6.971 Biomedical Devices Design). What I've learned about mentoring is that it is very important to stay positive and to be patient. When working together with someone, it is tempting to push your own ideas a little too much. This can be counterproductive in the long run as it is important to get buy-in from the person who you're mentoring on the project and allow them to come up with their own ideas.

What were your first impressions of MIT and how have they changed or been reinforced? your impressions of MEMS research and studies at MIT and the MEMS community?

MIT is a great place for tinkers and inventors and the MEMS community at MIT is wonderfully supportive. I love the three lab system (ICL-TRL-EML) where different levels of experimentation can go on. An important part of this mechanism is that the labs are supported by knowledgeable staff who will work through problems with you and are open to trying new ways of doing things. I don't think my thesis would have been possible without their help.

Hong Ma How do you keep your life balanced outside of the lab?

I try to keep life balanced outside of the lab by exercising daily and periodically taking holidays in adventurous places. Exercising allows me to stay healthy and release those endorphins at the end of the day. MIT has a 24/7 mentality and it is sometimes difficult to "disconnect". So, traveling to an adventurous place can be an intense experience that allows you to put aside the work for a while and come back with a fresh perspective. Since coming to MIT, I've been to Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and Morocco. This year, I spent my Christmas holidays camping with my parents in Hawaii.

What are your plans for the future? Any words of wisdom for undergrads considering this field?

I'm currently working as a postdoc to explore applications of my thesis as a chemical detection technology and particularly in detecting environmental contamination. I have also been teaching a class called 2.996/6.971 Biomedical Devices Design. This is a class I developed based on the format of Prof. Slocum's 2.75, which had partnered with the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) to develop new medical devices. The instruction in 2.75 is primarily focused on mechanical design, while the instruction in my class focuses on electronic product design.
My main advice for undergraduates is to get as much practical experience as possible. The experience will give you perspective on the material in your course work and help you develop that link between theory and practice.

MicroTAS (October) 2007 - MEMS Center Research Reflects Developing Trends

At the annual MicroTAS (uTAS) Conference held in Paris, France in October 2007, presentations representing the work of 11 Center faculty were featured.
According to Center faculty member, Prof. Joel Voldman, the Conference seemed to reflect the following: "from an application perspective, the field is headed more and more into biology and the creation of devices that use or analyze cells, (and) from a technological perspective the rise of nanofluidics and other nanoscale phenomena is becoming more evident."

Center faculty research presentations: (alphabetical order)

MULTIFUNCTIONAL BARCODED PARTICLES FOR HIGH-THROUGHPUT MOLECULAR SCREENING: D.C. Pregibon, M. Toner, and P.S. Doyle
HIGH-THROUGHPUT PROTEOMIC SAMPLE PRECONCENTRATION IN PDMS MICROFLUIDIC CHIP USING SURFACE-PATTERNED ION-SELECTIVE MEMBRANE: J.H. Lee, Y. -A. Song, S.J. Kim and J. Han
NANOFLUIDIC PRECONCENTRATION DEVICE FOR SENSITIVE AND WIDE DYNAMIC RANGE IMMUNO-SENSING: Y. -C.Wang, V.H. Liu and J. Han
MICROFLUIDIC GENE SYNTHESIS: D.S. Kong, P.A. Carr, L. Chen, K. Chang, S. Zhang and J.M. Jacobson
MICROFLUIDIC DEVICES FOR STUDYING THE RESPONSE OF ADHERENT CELLS UNDER SHORT TIME STIMULI TREATMENT: L. Ye, M. Zhang, L.G. Alexopoulos, P. Sorger, and K.F. Jensen
OSCILLATORY BUBBLING IN A MICROFLUIDIC T-JUNCTION: S.A. Khan and K.F. Jensen
A MICROFLUIDIC AUTOSAMPLER WITH TRUE TEFLON VALVES: DESIGN AND APPLICATION TO SUSPENDED MICROCHANNEL RESONATOR MASS SENSORS: W.H. Grover, Y. -C.Weng and S.R. Manalis
SUSPENDED MICROCHANNEL RESONATORS WITH INTEGRATED ELECTRONIC READOUT FOR BIOMOLECULAR AND SINGLE CELL ANALYSIS: R. Chunara, T.P. Burg, K. Payer, P. Dextras, and S.R. Manalis
STUDY OF CELL-CELL COMMUNICATION USING OPTICALLY ASSEMBLED 3D LIVING CELL MICROARRAYS: W. Timp, U. Mirsaidov, K.A. Timp, M. Mir, G. Timp, and P. Matsudaira
TECHNIQUE FOR MEASURING THE DIELECTRIC CONSTANT OF LIQUIDS AND GASES WITHOUT THE USE OF CALIBRATION STANDARDS: H.Ma, J.H. Lang and A.H. Slocum
ELECTROLYTE DEPENDENCE OF AC ELECTRO-OSMOSIS: M.Z. Bazant, J.P. Urbanski, J.A. Levitan, K. Subramanian, M.S. Kilic, A. Jones and T. Thorsen
DIELECTROPHORETICALLY SWITCHABLE MICROFLUIDIC WEIR STRUCTURES FOR EXCLUSION-BASED SINGLE-CELL MANIPULATION: B.M. Taff, S.P. Desai and J. Voldman
A PHOTOPATTERNABLE SILICONE FOR BIOMEMS APPLICATIONS: S.P. Desai, B.M. Taff and J. Voldman
STUDYING REPROGRAMMING OF SOMATIC CELLS VIA FUSION WITH EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS: A MASSIVELY PARALLEL DEVICE FOR CELL FUSION: A.M. Skelley, O. Kirak, R. Jaenisch and J. Voldman
MODELING THE ELECTROKINETICS OF NANOPARTICLES FOR CONTROLLED ASSEMBLY: M.D. Vahey, R.J. Barsotti, R.Wartena, Y. -M. Chiang, F. Stellacci and J. Voldman
VESICLE LIBRARIES - TOOLS FOR DIELECTROPHORESIS METROLOGY: S.P. Desai, M.D. Vahey and J. Voldman

For more details on the October 2007 MicroTAS Conference, go to http://www.microtas2007.org/

Awards and Recognition 2007 (Faculty, students, staff)

We are proud to highlight the professional and academic achievements of the members of the MEMS Center. Please join us in congratulating the following: (alphabetical order by department)

Department of Biological Engineering

Professional Awards/Distinctions: Prof. Scott Manalis - Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers 2007

Department of Chemical Engineering

Promotions: Prof. Klavs F. Jensen - Head of the Dept. of Chemical Engineering
Prof. Patrick Doyle
Departmental Awards: Daniel Pregibon - Outstanding Seminar Award
Professional Awards/Distinctions: Prof. Klavs F. Jensen - Honorary Doctorate - Technical University of Denmark
Prof. Pat Doyle - Colburn Memorial Lecture (Invitation)
Dissertation Defended: Brandon Blackwell

Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Promotions: Prof. David Perreault
Prof. Luca Daniel
Chair Appointments: Prof. Luca Daniel - Emanuel E. Landsman (1958) Career Development Associate Professor
Departmental Recognition Awards: Prof. Jeff Lang - Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching
Prof. Anantha Chandrakasan - Eta Kappa Nu Award for Teaching
Prof. Denny Freeman - IEEE/ACM Award for Undergraduate Advising
Graduate Student Awards: Robert Pilawa - Morris Joseph Levin Award for Outstanding MasterWorks Oral Thesis Presentation
Olumuyima Ogunnika - MIT-CMIT Medical Engineering Fellowship (2nd year continued)
Dissertation Defended: Olyumuyima Ogunnika
Hongshen Ma
Ole Mattis Nielsen
Johnson Hou

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Professional Awards: Prof. Harry Tuller - Edward Orton Jr. Memorial Award (for Scholarly Attainment in the Ceramic or related field)
Dissertation Defended: Valerie Leblanc
Jianglong (Gerry) Chen
Dilan Seneviratne

Department of Mathematics

Professional Awards/Distinctions: Prof. Martin Bazant - Popular Science Brilliant Ten Researchers

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Chair Appointments: Prof. Alex Slocum - Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professorship
Departmental Recognition Awards: Prof. Carol Livermore - Spira Award for Excellence in Education
Prof. George Barbastathis - John Kellett Award for creating a more welcoming environment at MIT
Institute Awards: Gang Chen - MIT Energy Initiative Grant 2007
Carol Livermore - Deshpande Award 2007
Graduate Student Awards: Brentan Alexander - Department Service Award (Outstanding Service to the Department) and the Padmakar P. Lele Student Award for Outstanding Research and Thesis
Jianping Fu - Helen Carr Peake Research Prize 2007 and the Senturia Prize for Outstanding Research in MEMS/NEMS and Contributions to the MEMS Community 2007
Dissertation Defended: Jianping Fu
Craig Forest

Look for our next newsletter in Spring 2008.