The Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology at Georgia Tech has announced the winners for the 2014 Spring Seed Grant Awards. The primary purpose of the IEN Seed Grant is to give first or second year graduate students in various disciplines working on original and un-funded research in micro- and nano-scale projects the opportunity to access the most advanced academic cleanroom space in the Southeast. In addition to accessing the high-level fabrication, lithography, and characterization tools in the labs, the students will have the opportunity to gain proficiency in cleanroom and tool methodology and to use the consultation services provided by research staff members of the IEN Advanced Technology Team.  In addition, the Seed Grant program gives faculty with novel research topics the ability to develop preliminary data in order to pursue follow-up funding sources.

The 5 winning projects, from a diverse group of engineering disciplines, were awarded a six month block of IEN cleanroom and lab access time. In keeping with the interdisciplinary mission of IEN, the projects that will be enabled by the grants include research in materials, biomedicine, optoelectronics, and packaging applications.

The Spring 2014 IEN Seed Grant Award winners are:

• Jordan Ciciliano (PI Wilbur Lam, Biomedical Engineering), Point-of-Care Microfluidic Neutrophil Count Diagnostic for Cancer Patients
• Jong Seok Park (PI Hua Wang, Electrical and Computer Engineering), Developing Post-Processing Techniques to Build High-Quality Optical Filters on Standard CMOS Sensor Chips
• Misha Rodin and Sampath Kommandur (PI Shannon Yee, Mechanical Engineering), Measuring Thermal Conductivity of Amorphous Thin-Films
• Ben Rainwater (PI Meilin Liu, Materials Science and Engineering), Fabrication of Thin-film Li-ion Electrolyte Membranes with Vertically Aligned Interfaces Tailored for Dramatic Enhancement of Ionic Conductivity
• Bopeng Zhang (PI Yongsheng Chen, Civil and Environmental Engineering),  Synthesis of Novel Nano-composite Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) Ion-exchange Membranes for Sustainable Energy Production using Salinity Gradient

 Awardees will present the results of their research efforts at the annual IEN User Day in 2015.

For more information about IEN cleanroom facilities, research capabilities, and collaboration opportunities please visit www.ien.gatech.edu.