[BNC-all] WEEKLY MEMO, week of 031708

Tue Mar 18 10:02:38 EDT 2008

WEEKLY MEMO, March 17, 2008

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1. Announcements
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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 at 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 at 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).

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2.  TOURS/VISITORS
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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

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3.  SEMINARS
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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.

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4.  OPPORTUNITIES
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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 at purdue.edu .

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5.  DISCOVERY PARK
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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 at 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>