Drawing on the region's world-class research, talent and technology assets, ONAMI researchers are leading the nation in discovery and application for four areas of small-tech research. Each of these research thrusts represents the collaboration of local industry, academia and government seeking to bring groundbreaking research to commercial reality.
Microtechnology-Based Energy and Chemical Systems
ONAMI researchers are fabricating microsystems that accelerate, miniaturize and distribute energy, chemical and biomedical processes. This work is based on the principle that mass and heat transfer are best accomplished in microchannels. These potentially revolutionary results can be applied to military energy, medical devices and other specialty chemical products.
Dr. Brian Paul, Professor of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University and Dr. Ward Tegrotenhuis of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory jointly direct this team.
Microtechnology-Based Energy and Chemical Systems website
Nanoscale Metrology and Nanoelectronics
ONAMI's strong industrial and academic experience in microscopy, analytical tools, and test and measurement comes together to meet the challenges of accurate measurement at the nanoscale. The challenges of nanoscale metrology are particularly important for future generations of semiconductor electronics.
ONAMI's shared facilities include state-of-the-art metrology equipment, including.
Transmission electron microscope (the region's most advanced)
Scanning electron microscopes
Dual-beam focused ion beam microscopes
Photoelectron microscopes
Near field scanning optical microscopes
Research projects include breakthrough advances in field-enhanced microscopy, electron optics and high-resolution quantitative materials characterization.
Dr. John Carruthers, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Portland State University and former director of components R&D at Intel, heads up this research collaboration.
Environmental Health and Safety
Environmental health and safety are key considerations across all ONAMI research activities. ONAMI firmly supports the idea that nanotechnology, pursued correctly, can improve our quality of life without safety or environmental risks.
Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing
The goals of the Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Initiative (SNNI) are to develop new nanomaterials and nanomanufacturing approaches that offer a high level of performance, yet pose minimal harm to human health or the environment. Research under the Initiative will merge the principles of green chemistry and nanoscience to produce safer nanomaterials and more efficient nanomanufacturing processes in the context of producing nanoparticles and nanostructured materials for applications in fields such as in photovoltaics, nanoelectronics and sensing.
SNNI is confronting concerns about the biological impact of nanoparticles. As part of an international research community, it is developing standards, well-characterized material libraries and precise methods for fundamental impact measurement.
Dr. Jim Hutchison, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oregon, leads this initiative that is bringing together key scientists in the life sciences, materials sciences and engineering, including eight National Young Investigator award winners. Visit the Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing website at
http://greennano.org.
Additionally, ONAMI partners across all research disciplines develop and share green nanoscience best practices to ensure that nanotechnology's potential will be realized in a safe, responsible and cost effective manner. By coupling the advances of all areas of ONAMI research with its world-class expertise in green chemistry and microproducts, ONAMI is creating high performance materials, devices and systems that protect both human health and the environment.
Nanolaminates and Transparent Electronics
In the field of nanolaminates and transparent electronics, ONAMI researchers are pursuing cutting-edge materials chemistry applications in optics, electronics, sensors, thermoelectrics, magnetics and metrology standards. Transparent electronics for flat panel displays, for example, will enable brighter, lower power and less expensive displays - an important industry sector in Oregon.
By applying atomic-precision synthesis using both low-temperature solution chemistry and gas-phase assembly techniques, scientists have created functionally graded materials from modulated elemental reactants, and composite electronic materials.
This work has direct implications for:
Transparent and printed electronics
Semiconductor processing
High-performance thermoelectric cooling
High-performance and reliability deep UV lasers
Advanced photovoltaics
Professors Dave Johnson of UO and Doug Keszler at OSU lead this research initiative.