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Dr. Michael Fuhrer Presents at Port Discovery Children's Museum

Nanoscientist Dr. Michael Fuhrer from the University of Maryland MRSEC provided an interactive talk on nano at Port Discovery Children's Museum on Saturday, September 8, 2012 by the "NanoFabulous" and "nano" exhibits.

Dr. Fuhrer is an expert in nanoscale electronics that are changing our world!

See more pictures of the event.

Nanoscience Camp Fieldtrip to NanoFabulous

The MRSEC "Nanoscience: The World Smaller than a Human Hair" camp took a field trip to the University of Maryland MRSEC-developed NanoFabulous exhibit at Port Discovery Children's Museum! Camp instructors used the exhibit as a teaching tool for nanoscience concepts.

For more information about NanoFabulous, see the press release, pictures of the exhibit online, or visit the exhibit at Port Discovery Children's Museum through October 2012.

Electric Potential Metrology on the Nanoscale

K. Burson, Y. Wei, W.G. Cullen, M.S. Fuhrer, and J.E. Reutt-Robey, MRSEC, University of Maryland

Nanomaterials offer innovative approaches to problems from energy production to information storage. A major challenge for nanomaterial use is limited knowledge of their local electrical properties. The “electric potential sets the charge-transport pathway through a material. Maryland researchers have profiled this potential for nanostructured films found in organic transistors and solar cells. They have made precision measurements of “potential steps” at material interfaces contained in the organic films, showing how these step “heights” depend upon the molecular building blocks, while step “widths” exceed the molecular size. Electric potential channels as narrow as three nm are thus possible in organic films.

Measurements that relate nanoscale structure to the local potential (“electric potential metrology”) enable nanomaterial design for more efficient use in energy and electronic technologies. [See: Nano Lett., DOI: 10.1021/nl3004607 (2012)]