Ahmed Busnaina

High-rate nanoscale offset printing using a newly developed reusable template enables the assembly of nanomaterials into nanostructures followed by their transfer onto a flexible substrate in a few minutes. The developed template can potentially be reused more than 100 times in the offset printing process without any additional functionalization. This approach provides a new way for the printing of flexible devices with nanoscale patterns.

Directed assembly of nano building blocks offers a versatile route to the creation of complex nanostructures with unique properties. Bottom-up directed assembly of nanoparticles have been considered as one of the best approaches to fabricate such functional and novel nanostructures. However, there is a dearth of studies on making crystalline, solid, and homogeneous nanostructures. This requires a fundamental understanding of the forces driving the assembly of nanoparticles and precise control… Show more

Directed assembly of nano building blocks offers a versatile route to the creation of complex nanostructures with unique properties. Bottom-up directed assembly of nanoparticles have been considered as one of the best approaches to fabricate such functional and novel nanostructures. However, there is a dearth of studies on making crystalline, solid, and homogeneous nanostructures. This requires a fundamental understanding of the forces driving the assembly of nanoparticles and precise control of these forces to enable the formation of desired nanostructures. Here, we demonstrate that colloidal nanoparticles can be assembled and simultaneously fused into 3-D solid nanostructures in a single step using externally applied electric field. By understanding the influence of various assembly parameters, we showed the fabrication of 3-D metallic materials with complex geometries such as nanopillars, nanoboxes, and nanorings with feature sizes as small as 25 nm in less than a minute. The fabricated gold nanopillars have a polycrystalline nature, have an electrical resistivity that is lower than or equivalent to electroplated gold, and support strong plasmonic resonances. We also demonstrate that the fabrication process is versatile, as fast as electroplating, and scalable to the millimeter scale. These results indicate that the presented approach will facilitate fabrication of novel 3-D nanomaterials (homogeneous or hybrid) in an aqueous solution at room temperature and pressure, while addressing many of the manufacturing challenges in semiconductor nanoelectronics and nanophotonics. Show less

We report a nanolithography technique for the high aspect-ratio nanostructure manufacturing using DODE (double oxide deposition and etching) process. Conventional microfabrication processes are integrated to manufacture nanostructure arrays with sub-100 nm of linewidth. This lithography method is developed to overcome resolution limits of photolithography. High aspect-ratio nanostructures with sub-100 nm of lindewidth were fabricated on wafer-scale substrate without nanolithography techniques… Show more

We report a nanolithography technique for the high aspect-ratio nanostructure manufacturing using DODE (double oxide deposition and etching) process. Conventional microfabrication processes are integrated to manufacture nanostructure arrays with sub-100 nm of linewidth. This lithography method is developed to overcome resolution limits of photolithography. High aspect-ratio nanostructures with sub-100 nm of lindewidth were fabricated on wafer-scale substrate without nanolithography techniques. The DODE lithography process presented enabled to pave a way to overcome limitations of nanolithography processes and allowed to manufacture large-scale nanostructures using photolithography and thin film deposition and dry etching processes. Show less

This paper describes a microscale in vivo sensor platform device for the simultaneous detection of multiple biomarkers. We designed the polymer-based biosensors incorporating multiple active isolated areas, as small as 70μm × 70μm, for antigen detection. The fabrication approach involved conventional micro- and nano-fabrication processes followed by site-specific electrophoretic directed assembly of antibody-functionalized nanoparticles. To ensure precise and large-scale manufacturing of these… Show more

This paper describes a microscale in vivo sensor platform device for the simultaneous detection of multiple biomarkers. We designed the polymer-based biosensors incorporating multiple active isolated areas, as small as 70μm × 70μm, for antigen detection. The fabrication approach involved conventional micro- and nano-fabrication processes followed by site-specific electrophoretic directed assembly of antibody-functionalized nanoparticles. To ensure precise and large-scale manufacturing of these biosensors, we developed a semi-automated system for the attachment of the 250-μm biosensor to a 300-μm catheter probe. Our fabrication and post-processing procedures should enable large-scale production of such biosensor devices at lower manufacturing cost. The principle of detection with these biosensors involved a simple fluorescence-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. These biosensors exhibit high selectivity (ability to selectively detect multiple biomarkers of different diseases), specificity (ability to target generic to specific disease biomarkers), rapid antigen uptake, and low detection limits (for carcinoembryonic antigen, 31.25 pg mL−1; for nucleosomes, 62.5 pg mL−1), laying the foundation for potential early detection of various diseases. Show less

We introduce a nanoplasmonic platform merging multiple modalities for optical trapping, nanospectroscopy, and biosensing applications. Our platform is based on surface plasmon polariton driven monopole antenna arrays combining complementary strengths of localized and extended surface plasmons. Tailoring of spectrally narrow resonances lead to large index sensitivities (S∼675 nm/RIU) with record high figure of merits (FOM∼112.5). These monopole antennas supporting strong light localization with… Show more

We introduce a nanoplasmonic platform merging multiple modalities for optical trapping, nanospectroscopy, and biosensing applications. Our platform is based on surface plasmon polariton driven monopole antenna arrays combining complementary strengths of localized and extended surface plasmons. Tailoring of spectrally narrow resonances lead to large index sensitivities (S∼675 nm/RIU) with record high figure of merits (FOM∼112.5). These monopole antennas supporting strong light localization with easily accessible near-field enhanced hotspots are suitable for vibrational nanospectroscopy and optical trapping. Strong optical forces (350 pN/W/μm2) are shown at these hotspots enabling directional control with incident light polarization. Show less

The authors demonstrate precise alignment and controlled assembly of single wall nanotube (SWNT) bundles at a fast rate over large areas by combining electrophoresis and dip coating processes. SWNTs in solution are assembled on prepatterned features that are 80 nm wide and separated by 200 nm. The results show that the direction of substrate withdrawal significantly affects the orientation and alignment of the assembled SWNT bundles. I-V characterization is carried out to demonstrate electrical… Show more

The authors demonstrate precise alignment and controlled assembly of single wall nanotube (SWNT) bundles at a fast rate over large areas by combining electrophoresis and dip coating processes. SWNTs in solution are assembled on prepatterned features that are 80 nm wide and separated by 200 nm. The results show that the direction of substrate withdrawal significantly affects the orientation and alignment of the assembled SWNT bundles. I-V characterization is carried out to demonstrate electrical continuity of these assembled SWNT bundles. Show less