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Michael Geller, professor of physics and member of UGA’s
Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, is one of five co-principal
investigators on a three-year $1.46 million multi-institution grant
from the National Science Foundation to pursue the theoretical underpinnings
behind some of the newest challenges in science, the laws governing
theoretical nanomechanics.
Geller and a team of physicists and engineers from Cal Tech, Brown
University, Dartmouth College and Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory
will examine ongoing experimentation using state-of-the-art computation
and simulation techniques for solid state, biological and integrated
nano-bio systems. UGA is the lead institution on the grant.
As nanotechnology has gained currency as the most promising next
frontier in science, experimentation has outstripped the theory
needed to properly understand and make efficient use of it. This
interdisciplinary grant is intended to make some fundamental inroads
in closing that gap.
The team’s strategy will be to develop broadly applicable
theoretical methods by examining three paradigmatic mechanics problems:
friction and energy dissipation in nano-mechanical systems; new
mechanical models for biological materials and machines, including
DNA, bacterial flagella and ion channels; and the design and simulation
of bio-functionalized devices with applications to chemical and
biological sensing. The friction issues uncovered by experimentalists
in nano--mechanical systems highlight a recent breakthrough in quantum
mechanics, the multi-faceted potential of nanomechanical resonators.
“This is one of the biggest things going on in nanoscience
period right now,” says Geller. “It turns out these
resonators can act very well to communicate information and actually
process and perform quantum computation.”
Applications from this work reach from sensors to quantum computing
to devices yet to be imagined. Traditional mechanics approaches
have been unable to describe the mechanical properties of many nanoscale
systems. This team of mechanical engineers and condensed-matter
physicists offers the expertise to mirror the growing evidence that
nanomechanics is a multi-scale problem, combining traditional atomistic
and continuum methods. The team ventures into bio-physics and can
take advantage of, assist and even compete with experimental research
in quantum mechanics.
NanoSEC is holding a -membership drive throughout summer 2004. Interested
faculty should contact director Bill Dennis or go to the Center’s
Web site (http://nano.uga.edu)
for further information.
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