Grad student Ying receives ICALEO 18th annual Student Paper Award

Ying Liu, a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering from Laser Assisted Nano Engineering Lab (LANE), received a second-place student paper award for "Laser Direct Writing of Multifunctional Micro/Nano Devices Using Carbon Nanotube-Polymer Composites" at the 2016 International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) on Oct. 20 in San Diego.

Ying’s work investigates three-dimensional (3D) printing of functional micro/nano devices using carbon nanotubes (CNT) – polymer composite photoresist. By laser direct writing lithography, CNTs loading and alignment were achieved; various functional 3D micro/nanostructures have been successfully fabricated. These micro/nano structures demonstrated high electrical conductivity enhanced mechanical strength, good optical transparency and flexibility. Precise CNT assembly of ~100 nm spatial resolution has been achieved by subsequential thermal pyrolysis process. This technique, enables 3D precise printing of multifunctional micro/nano devices, holds great potential to pave a way for wide applications of carbon nanotubes, such as 3D electronics, photonic devices and micro/nanoelectromechanical systems.

This paper is co-authored with Wei Xiong, former UNL postdoctoral researcher now professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China); Lijia Jiang, postdoctoral researcher in electrical and computer engineering; Yunshen Zhou, research associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Lan Jiang, professor from Beijing Institute of Technology (China), and her advisor Yongfeng Lu, Lott Distinguished University Professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The team's research received support from the U.S. National Science Foundation and Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research.