Thrust Areas

For another decade (2021-2030)

Soft/Hard Micro-/Nanofluidics: Small Chip but Big World!

Understanding and Control of Nanoscale Transport Phenomena Using Soft/Hard Nanofluidics

Lab on a Chip, Sensors, High Throughput Screening, etc
- Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (MNF) deal with fluid mechanics and mass transport phenomena at micro-/nanoscale. Unlike classical fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer, the MNF are a multi-disciplinary field including engineering, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biotechnology and show a variety of novel applications.

Crack-lithography for a Single or Multiple Nanochannels
Fluid Patterning for Nanoscale Material Forming: various nanomaterials are patterned in a controllable fashion
Winkle-lithography for an Array of Multiscale Nanochannels
- Instead of conventional nanofabrication processes, novel alternatives are developed in an unconventional manner to simultaneously produce mixed-scale patterns on a substrate by using only the standard photolithography. The micro-/nanopatterns are subsequently used as a master mold for soft-lithography, enabling to replicate micro-/nanofluidic devices simply and repeatedly, showing a wide variety of micro-/nanofluidic applications.

Multi-physics simulations provide a powerful means to visualize what is going on at the micro-/nanoscales. These simulations typically deal with Navier-Stokes equation, Poisson's equation, and Nernst-Planck equation at the same time. In addition, theoretical modeling along with feasible boundary conditions increases the accuracy of the simulation results, which sometimes enables us to understand and predict underlying fundamental mechanisms in experiments or sometimes supports experimental results conversely.
In addition, deep learning approaches (AI) are employed to figure out how to analyze and classify the experimental results obtained via microscopy in massive, high-throughput, and collective manners.

Finding a needle in a haystack

Artificial Gill for Underwater Activities and Applications
- Is it possible to breathe in the water like fish?

Nanoscopic Control & Measurement
Visualization of Nanoscale Transport Phenomena Using Customized micro-controller or processor
Automation of Experimental setup Including Micro-/NanoDevices
Automation of Data Acquisition to real-time monitoring/controlling/processing
Wireless communication to visualize data and status of systems (w/ Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, LoRa ...)
- Let's have the robot experiment!