|
 | |
GK12: Science, Technology, and Math Partnerships |
Project STAMP: Science, Technology and Math Partnerships is a Boston University program funded with $1.6M from the National Science Foundation. Its purpose is to enhance the curricula in science, mathematics, and technology classrooms by partnering graduate and undergraduate student fellows with K12 teachers. The expected outcome is that these teacher-fellow teams will form close working relationships, share their experiences and expertise with one another, and provide additional resources and enhanced content within the classroom. Boston University has forged partnerships with four area school districts, Boston, Chelsea, Quincy, and Newton, and has placed a total of 13 fellows (9 graduate and 4 undergraduate) in their physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, and
mathematics classrooms. STAMP fellows are presently working with partner teachers and are directly involved in classroom enhancement activities. STAMP fellows typically spend 10 hours per week in the class, teaching lessons, assisting in laboratories, and working directly with students. |
Bennett B. Goldberg |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Graphene Spectroscopy |
Graphene is a thin, monoatomic layer of graphite. Despite the fact that it is produced virtually every time a pencil is used, it was first fabricated on silicon oxide substrates in 2004. Graphene shows remarkable electronic properties. Its valence and conduction bands touch, which makes graphene a zero gap metal or semiconductor, depending on its doping level. Around the Dirac point, the point in momentum space where the bands touch, the electronic dispersion relation is linear in momentum, mimicking the behavior of mass-less relativistic particles such as photons. Therefore graphene is an exciting condensed matter model system for relativistic physics.
During the last four years, a quickly growing number of physicists has been conducting research on the electronic and optical properties of graphene. In our lab, spatially resolved Raman spectroscopy on mono- and bilayer graphene samples in low temperatures is carried out. Electrical transport measurements on gated samples are also under investigation. |
Sebastian Christoph Remi |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Nanotube spectroscopy |
A carbon nano-tube can be thought of as a graphite sheet rolled up into a cylinder. The diameter is of the order of 1 nm while the tube can be several micrometers long. Due to the small circumference, the electronic structure is effectively one-dimensional and it depends solely on the direction the graphite sheet is rolled up (the chirality) and the diameter of the tube. Specifically, the tubes can be either semi-conducting with varying energy gap, or metallic, depending on the rollup parameters. Hence these tubes provide the means to explore fundamental 1D physics, as well as potential applications such nm scale semiconductor devices. We use resonant Raman scattering to characterize the tubes, where we utilize the strong dependence of the resonance conditions on the lattice vibrations and the electronic structure. |
Anna K. Swan |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Numerical Aperture Increasing Lens Microscopy |
The numerical aperture increasing lens (NAIL) is a plano-convex lens placed on the planar surface of an object to enhance the amount of light coupled from subsurface structures within the object. In particular, a NAIL allows for the collection of otherwise inaccessible light at angles beyond the critical angle of the planar surface of the object. Therefore, the limit on numerical aperture increases from unity for conventional subsurface microscopy to the refractive index of the object for NAIL microscopy. Spherical aberration associated with conventional subsurface microscopy is also eliminated by the NAIL. Consequently, both the amount of light collected and diffraction-limited spatial resolution are improved beyond the limits of conventional subsurface microscopy. |
Anthony Nickolas Vamivakas |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Opto-Electrical Wireless Neural Stimulators |
Electrically powered implanted actuators are commonly used for neural tissue micro-stimulation to research treatment of a variety of neurological disorders. Currently, these actuators are being activated by electrical power delivered through electrodes tethered to the skull, resulting in tissue damage for long-term implants. Optically powered silicon photodiodes can electrically stimulate neural tissue without causing tissue damage. At the near-infrared range of 850nm, an optical power source can safely penetrate human tissue. We have designed and fabricated silicon photodiodes for implantation and opto-electrical stimulation of neural tissue to meet both electrical performance and tissue biocompatibility demands. Having shown successful performance characteristics in the first round of device development, a second round of optimized photodiodes with smaller dimensions and improved stimulation performance have been designed and are currently being fabricated. These devices are expected to facilitate advancements in the study of neurological disease treatment. |
Steven Menn |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Quantum Dot Spectroscopy |
Time resolved micro-photoluminescence(PL) and nano-PL of InGaAs quantum dots spectroscopy. With the techneque of solid immersion microscopy, we are working on high resolution spectroscopy of individual quantum dots. We also do time resolved spectroscopy to investigate the dynamcis of quantum dots system. |
Anthony Nickolas Vamivakas |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Resonant Cavity Imaging Biosensor |
The Resonant Cavity Imaging Biosensor project aims to explore the use of an Fabry-Perot optical cavity as the basis for a high throughput biosensing technique. |
Dave Alan Bergstein |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Self-Interference Fluorescence Microscopy |
Over the past year and a half, we have developed a new interferometric technique in fluorescent imaging called spectral self-interference fluorescence microscopy which yields nm-scale axial height determination. The technique utilizes self-interference between directly collected and reflected light, emitted many wavelengths above a buried reflector. The resulting unique spectral signature is analyzed using known material parameters to find the vertical position of the fluorophore with nanometer precision. More importantly, we suggest that optical resolution on the order of 10-20 nm can be achieved by independently scanning the excitation standing wave and invert the result to reveal the vertical fluorescence distribution. |
Mehmet Dogan |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Silicon Based Resonant Cavity Enhanced Photodetectors |
Resonant-cavity-enhanced (RCE) photodetectors have been the focus of extensive research over the past decade in the design of high bandwidth-efficiency product devices. Increasing the bandwidth-efficiency product is the inherent benefit of a RCE structure, which relies on the constructive interference of a Fabry-Perot cavity to enhance the optical field inside the photodetector at specific wavelenghts. For semiconductor photodetectors, such a resonant cavity can be formed using a buried reflector and the air/semiconductor top interface. We have introduced a silicon wafer with a high reflectance buried DBR for the fabrication of RCE optoelectronic devices. These substrates, manufactured by a repeated silicon on insulator (SOI) process, are device grade quality for electrical circuit fabrication. |
Steven Menn |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Tip enhanced near field scanning optical microscopy |
This project is based on the idea of combination of SIL with local field enhancement. The system is still in developing. |
Yan Yin |
Go to Project Page |
 | |
Women in Engineering |
Four Schools for Women in Engineering (WIE) is a consortium of four engineering colleges in Massachusetts joined in a commitment to positively impact the number of middle school girls interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) beyond what each school might accomplish separately. Each partner institution, Boston University (BU), Northeastern University (NU), Tufts University (Tufts), and Worcester Institute of Technology (WPI), has formed and trained all-female STEM teams composed of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and industry partners devoted to developing a model that demonstrates the teaching and application of STEM concepts in gender inclusive ways. The STEM curriculum concepts are developed around Massachusetts mandated Pre K-12 Education Frameworks which began to include a Science and Technology strand in the fall of 2001. These learning-standard Frameworks are also tested on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Individual university STEM teams work to help mentor middle school science teachers based upon this strand, and then serve as in-class resources in eight different public schools districts in the greater Boston area. |
Anna K. Swan |
Go to Project Page |
|
