Nanostructures for Sensing and Energy Applications

Liwei Lin, Ph.D.
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of California Berkeley

Zero- and one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures have been attracting great interests in the past decades for possible applications with two major emphases: (1) synthesis, assembly and integration of nanomaterials; and (2) practical applications in fields such as device, energy and medicine.  Leveraging from our core competencies in MEMS fabrication,  we  have  been  working  on  sensing  and  energy  generation/storage applications of zero- and one-dimensional nanostructures.  I will talk about some of the progresses  in  these  areas  including:  (1)  the  application  of  quantum  dots  as  local thermometers to detect transient intra-cellular temperature profile of living cells as well as temperature distributions of micro structures; (2) direct synthesis and self-aligned 1D nanostructures on arbitrary substrates for applications such as flexible electronics; (3) 1D piezoelectric nanofibers as nanogenerators; and (4) forest structures made of 1D  nanostructures  for  energy  storage  applications  such  as  supercapacitors  and batteries.

Professor Liwei Lin joined the University of California at Berkeley in 1999 and is now Professor  at  the  Mechanical  Engineering  Department  and  Co-Director  at  Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, an NSF/Industry/University research cooperative center. His  research  interests  are  in  design,  modeling  and  fabrication  of  micro/nano structures, sensors and actuators as well as mechanical issues in micro/nano systems including heat transfer, solid/fluid mechanics and dynamics. Dr. Lin is the recipient of the 1998 NSF CAREER Award for research in MEMS Packaging and the 1999 ASME Journal  of  Heat  Transfer  best  paper  award  for  his  work  on  micro  scale  bubble formation.  He led the effort to establish the MEMS division in ASME and served as the founding Chairman of the Executive Committee from 2004~2005.  He is an ASME Fellow  and  has 15  issued  US patents  in  the area  of  MEMS.  He  was  the  general co-chair of the 24th international conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems. Currently, he serves as a subject editor for the IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectrome-chanical Systems and the North and South America Editor of Sensors and Actuators–A Physical.