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USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, DC, April 27-29, 2012

View pictures of the event in our gallery on Facebook.

MRSEC is proud to partner with APS, AAPT, ASA, OSA, SPS, and AIP to present Big Top Physics at this year's USA Science & Engineering Festival Finale Expo. Come one, come all to the greatest physics show on earth! Ever wonder how circus tricks are managed? Come into our circus and find out! Barnum and Bailey have nothing on us.

The expo will be open to the general public April 28-29, while "Sneak Peek Friday" will give school field trip students a chance to dive into STEM.

Find Big Top Physics in Hall B, Booth Number 1527. For directions and more information about the Expo, visit http://www.usasciencefestival.org/.

Maryland Day 2012: April 28, 2012

MRSEC, along with the rest of the University of Maryland, will be once again opening its doors to the community April 28, 2012 for Maryland Day. Come by to make silly putty polymers, UV-sensitive color-changing bead bracelets, or try out the UV-sensitive color-changing nail polish. We hope to see you there!

MRSEC-developed Nano Exhibit Unveiled

"NanoFabulous," a nano exhibit developed by the University of Maryland MRSEC, was unveiled April 12, 2012 at Port Discovery Children's Museum in Baltimore, MD. Speakers included Port Discovery President and CEO Bryn Parchman, MRSEC Director Dr. Janice Reutt-Robey, MRSEC Associate Director and Director of Education Donna Hammer, and Maryland Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger. News coverage of the event was featured on WJZ, CBS Baltimore. See pictures of the exhibit online, or visit the exhibit at Port Discovery Children's Museum through October 2012.

Former MRSEC Director Ellen Williams' work at BP Highlighted

In a published interview with Dr. Ellen Williams, former UMD-MRSEC Director and current Chief Scientist for BP, Physics Today highlights Williams' efforts to bring new energy to BP. The full article is available from Physics Today.

Pictured above: Dr. Ellen Williams, former MRSEC Director, with MRSEC staff at her Farewell Tribute in 2009.

Nanopatterning for Directed Self-Assembly of Mounds during Epitaxial Growth on GaAs(001)

Chuan-Fu Lin, Ajmi Hammouda, Hung-Chih Kan and Ray Phaneuf

One of the grand challenges presented by nanotechnology is achieving the fabrication of immense numbers of nanometer sized structures with controlled placement, on a practical time scale. Directed self-assembly in which a template of some form is employed for the spontaneous assembly of structures, via interplay of kinetics and energetics is seemingly one approach toward achieving this. Here we use Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to investigate whether a predefined topographical pattern, in the presence of an “extra” diffusion barrier to an atom crossing a step (“Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier”) can lead to self assembly of a variety of ordered arrangements of nanometer-sized “mounds” during epitaxial growth on a patterned substrate. [1] This video shows the progression of the topography in this system using a moderate Ehrlich-Schwoebel Barrier of 0.1 eV, with a growth rate of 1 monolayer/s, at a temperature of 740K. The frame rate is logarithmic in time as most of the changes occur early on. The overall thickness grown is 500 monolayers.

[1] Lin, C. –F. Hammouda, A. B. Kan, H. –C. Bartelt, N.C. and Phaneuf, R. J., in preparation (2011)