WEEKLY MEMO, March 17, 2008 **************** 1. Announcements **************** 1.1: CLEANROOM AND LAB PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE SCHEDULE: MONDAY, 03.31.08 TO FRIDAY, 04.04.08 Monday, 03.31.08, 10:00 AM: All materials must be removed from cleanroom solvent hoods. Monday, 03.31.08, 4:00 PM: All materials must be removed from the remaining cleanroom hoods. CLEANROOM CLOSED. Tuesday, 04.01.08 7:30 AM: No ultrapure water available. No acid processing in laboratories. No hazardous gases available. CLEANROOM CLOSED. Wednesday, 04.02.08, all day: No ultrapure water available. No acid processing in laboratories. No hazardous gases available. Wednesday, 04.02.08, 4:00 PM: All materials must be removed from laboratory hoods (including biosafety cabinets; all bio materials must be removed from exhausted enclosures). Thursday, 04.03.08, 8:00 AM: Cleanroom will re-open, barring unforeseen circumstances. All solvent hoods and processes will remain down for general exhaust upgrades. LABORATORIES CLOSED. Thursday, 04.03.08 Friday, 04.04.08, 8:00 AM: Laboratories will re-open and Cleanroom general exhaust should be operational, barring unforeseen circumstances. Questions or comments? Contact Mark Voorhis (mvoorhis@purdue.edu) 1.2: Autoclave Training for the month of March registration is online. Class size is limited to 5 people. Friday, March 28, 2008, 4-5PM: Register here: http://www.itap.purdue.edu/training/registration/?offeringid=2688 <http://www.itap.purdue.edu/training/registration/?offeringid=2688> To register, click on the link and log in using your career account. The description of the course pops up and is called ³Getinge Autoclave Training.² Click on ³Register for this course.² The registration page will come up. Make sure your contact information is correct and click on ³Submit.² You will receive a confirmation in your email for this class. Christy Cooper will offer her training in either April or May and may be at different times and days according to what best fits her schedule. She will send an email at the appropriate time regarding her classes. Christy and I have both agreed that we will try offering this course every other week for the rest of the Spring Semester. This will help streamline our time so that we can concentrate on our research and other responsibilities. Contact Lisa Reece, 66786, 532.5932; lreece@purdue.edu with any questions or concerns. 1.3: Call for Papers: AVS 55th International Symposium & Exhibition, October 19-24, 2008, Boston, Mass. Visit www.avs.org <http://www.avs.org> for details. 1.4: VISA news: when your J-1 scholar or H-1B employees leaves your employment, he/she is required to complete a departure record form with the ISS office. This form may be downloaded from the ISS website (http://www.iss.purdue.edu/; click on ³online documents²). ******************** 2. TOURS/VISITORS ******************** 2.1: Tuesday, 03.18.08, 1:30PM, University of Louisville, nanocleanroom 2.2: Wednesday, 03.19.08, between 3:30 and 5:00, Mayo Clinic 2.3: Wednesday, 03.19.08, 3:40PM, MSE 190 Class tour 2.4: Wednesday and Thursday, 03.19.08 and 03.20.08, HP visiting with Prof. Schwartz 2.5: Thursday, 03.20.08, between 3:00 and 5:00, MSE open house tour ******************** 3. SEMINARS ******************** 3.1: Thursday, March 20, 2008, 10:30AM, MSEE 239: ³System on Package,² by Professor Madhavan Swaminathan, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. ABSTRACT: As the semiconductor industry moves beyond the 45nm node and as systems become more mixed signal in nature, System on Chip (SoC) solutions are facing major barriers due to technical and business related reasons. This is leading to the development of alternate technological solutions such as System on Package (SoP). SoP, a technology being pioneered by Georgia Tech, allows for integration of functions in the substrate. Higher levels of integration are being achieved by embedding functions in the package and merging the package and board. In this presentation aspects of RF and digital integration will be discussed in the context of System on Package implementation. BIO: Madhavan Swaminathan is the Joseph M. Pettit Professor in Electronics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Deputy Director of the Packaging Research Center, Georgia Tech. He is the co-founder of Jacket Micro Devices, a company specializing in RF substrates and modules for WLAN and WiMAX applications. He has over 300 publications in refereed journals and conferences, 15 patents and is the author and co-author of two books ³Power Integrity Modeling and Design for Semiconductors and Systems², Prentice Hall, 2007 and ³Introduction to SOP², McGraw Hill, 2008. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he was with IBM working on the packaging for supercomputers. Madhavan is a Fellow of IEEE and is one of the pioneers of SOP technology at Georgia Tech. 3.2: Friday, 03.21.08, 3:30 refreshments, 3:45 seminar, ARMS 1010: ³Rapid Hydrogen Detection by Nanoscale Palladium and Quantitative Measurement of Hydrogen Uptake Using a Quartz Crystal Microbalance,² by Dr. Tao Xu, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Northern Illinois University. ABSTRACT: Rapid detection of low-concentration hydrogen gas leaks under ambient temperature is crucial for the safe application of future hydrogen-driven vehicles. In conventional palladium-based hydrogen sensors, the decrease of the conductance of Pd upon absorption of hydrogen serves as the sensing mechanism. We show that an opposite phenomenon occurs in a percolating Pd nanocluster film, whose conductance increases upon its absorption of hydrogen. The mechanism is based on the swelling of the Pd nanoclusters, thus narrowing/closing the inter-nanocluster gaps, which creates extra conducting pathways in the film. Further improvement is achieved by placing a siloxane self-assembled monolayer between a substrate and an evaporated discontinuous ultra-thin Palladium (Pd) film, which promotes the formation of smaller Pd nanoclusters and narrower inter-cluster gaps, and reduces the stiction between the Pd and the substrate. As a result, the film can detect 2% H2 with a rapid response time of ~70 ms and is sensitive to 25 ppm hydrogen. Hydrogen uptake in storage materials often occurs at high pressure. Conventional volumetric and gravimetric methods suffer from large sample quantity, the inevitable leak of hydrogen at high pressure and the correction of buoyancy force, etc. We demonstrate the application of a piezoelectric quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) for quantitative measurement of hydrogen mass uptake in storage materials up to 40 bar. Due to the high sensitivity of the QCM (<1ng/cm2), only miniature sample is required. The frequency shift of a quartz crystal coated with hydrogen absorbing materials is affected by the hydrogen mass uptake on the crystal, the pressure and the viscosity of the gases, and the crystal surface roughness, of which the roughness contribution has no direct analytical expression. We show that through a control experiment on the same crystal in helium, the roughness contribution in hydrogen can be derived and the frequency shift due to the hydrogen mass uptake can be obtained. BIO: Dr. Tao Xu received his B.S. in Chemistry at East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China in 1991, and his PhD in chemistry at The University of Alabama in 2003. He did a post-doc in chemistry at Texas A&M in 2003-2004 and a post-doc in materials science at Argonne National Laboratory in 2004-2006. ***************** 4. OPPORTUNITIES ***************** 4.1 Partnerships for Point of Care (POC) Diagnostic Technologies for Nontraditional Health Care Settings (U01) http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-AI-08-003.html <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-AI-08-003.html> . PURPOSE: The goal of this RFA is to advance the development of point of care (POC) diagnostic technologies for infectious disease-causing pathogens and toxins to be utilized in nontraditional health care settings. Pathogens and toxins that are the focus of this RFA include those causing sexually transmitted infections (STIs), urinary tract infections (UTIs), and respiratory infections. NOTE: Basic research to support the initial development of POC diagnostic technologies will NOT be supported. The application MUST propose the development of a previously identified candidate POC diagnostic technology and include proof-of-concept data demonstrating the feasibility of the technology. 4.2: HHMI Early Career Award: Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist from a wide range of scientific disciplines relevant to biological and medical inquiry. About 70 researchers will be selected at the 200 eligible institutions. Deadline: 04.30.08 for intention to submit; completed applications are due 06.10.08. Funding: Provides full salary and benefits as well as lab support for six years; $1.5M over six years for lab support. Eligibility: Hold a doctoral degree; tenure or tenure-track position. First faculty position as assistant professor must have begun no earlier than June 1, 2002, and no later than September 1, 2006. Can have no more than one other early career award. If selected, must spend 75% of time on research. Info: http://www.hhmi.org/news/earlycareer20080310.html <http://www.hhmi.org/news/earlycareer20080310.html> or email Bliley@purdue.edu . ***************** 5. DISCOVERY PARK ***************** 5.1: Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, with Krannert School of Management, is hosting the 21st Burton D. Morgan Business Plan Competition on Tuesday, April 8, 2008. The competition started with 47 executive summary submissions describing innovative product and service offerings. Through a rigorous judging process, 10 team finalists (five undergraduate student teams and five graduate student teams) are invited to present their business plans on April 8th. The grand prize is $40,000, for the "open division" and $20,000 for the "undergraduate division." Kevin Kahn, Avrum and Joyce Gray Director of the Center welcomes you to attend these presentations on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, from 8:30 to 11:55 A M and 1:00 to 4:05 PM in Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship Room 121. 5.2: The Energy Center is hosting the 3rd Annual Hydrogen Symposium on April 24-25, 2008. This year we are featuring speakers from U.S. Department of Energy, DOE Chemical Hydrogen Storage Center of Excellence, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, The Scripps Research Institute, Argonne National Laboratory, Northwestern University, The University of Tennessee, Iowa State University, The University of Alabama, Case Western Reserve University, Praxair, Inc., 3M, General Motors, and Hydrogen Discoveries, Inc. The symposium will address the following topics related to hydrogen: production, distribution, storage and fuel cells, as well as topics related to research meeting the market demands. CALL FOR POSTERS: poster session and reception on Thursday, April 24th from 5:15PM to 6:30PM at Ross Ade Stadium. If you wish to participate, please submit the attached application form by no later than April 7, 2008. A $100 cash prize will be awarded to the best poster as selected by our symposium planning committee. If you need any assistance with printing, please send email to energy@purdue.edu to make arrangements. FREE STUDENT REGISTRATION: We are pleased to have the opportunity this year to waive all student registration fees in order to make this conference accessible to all interested students. For more information, visit http://www.purdue.edu/dp/energy/2008hydrogen/. 5.3: Bioenergy and Beyond: Bioeconomy Workshop, Saturday, April 5, 8:30AM 12:00PM, Beck Agricultural Center. Agenda details and registration information at www.purdue.edu/dp/energy/bioEconomy_workshop/. 5.4: Seventh annual Advancing Manufacturing; free and open to the public; Tuesday May 6, 2008; 8:00AM5:00PM. For more information and to register for the summit, visit: http://www.purdue.edu/amap <http://www.purdue.edu/amap>