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COSINC is enabling a wide range of research projects across CU Boulder and beyond, spanning research areas ranging from electronics, photonics, quantum systems to environment and biomedical devices. While there are several high-impact research areas and impressive results conducted by our amazing researchers that we serve, in this edition, we have highlighted three research results that have been enabled by the COSINC capabilities and encompass areas from drug-delivery, efficient batteries to scalable quantum systems.

There is no doubt that the world needs more power, but it is also clear that we need a sustainable energy source that is clean, renewable, and cost-effective. One of the energy-storage strategies is provided by lithium-ion batteries. As we all know, lithium-ion batteries are an essential technology for powering portable devices that we use daily and also, electric vehicles. However, the manufacturing costs and efficiency of lithium-ion batteries are the primary reasons that stand in the way of being a sustainable energy source. Chunmei Ban, associate professor in Mechanical Engineering at CU Boulder, and her team came up with a solution by boosting the energy density of lithium-ion batteries and potentially lowering the manufacturing costs. The key element is the use of thick electrodes made of carbon fibers, to . The cost reduction in the manufacturing of the lithium-ion batteries using this approach comes from using the thick electrodes (over 100 micron thick) that increases the ratio of active to inactive battery components. This implies that the ability of the lithium-ion battery to store more energy is enabled by a more efficient use of the material in the battery, compared to other approaches. Further, the approach developed by the team is scalable. In this work, the COSINC dual beam scanning electron microscope (FIB-SEM, FEI Nova 600i Nanolab) was used to image and characterize the carbon fibers.

Imagine biodegradable tiny robots working their way through your bloodstream and identifying the specific areas to deliver drugs in precise amounts to the affected areas within our body or even carrying out disease diagnosis at a very early stage before any symptoms occur. Almost 36 years ago, an article by A. K. Dewdney in Scientific American (1988), K. Eric Drexler shared his vision of the microscopic healing machines in our body. Drexler referred to these machines as tiny vascular submarines that destroy unwanted organisms in the body and suggested that these technologies could increase human life span. Drexler surely had the foresight and his imagination is slowly materializing in actual experiments with some great results in this growing area. C. Wyatt Shields IV, assistant professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering at CU Boulder, and his team members are working towards realizing this dream. They have designed a new class of tiny, self-propelled robots that can zip through a body at incredible speeds. The bots are made up of polymer materials that are biocompatible and manufactured using our COSINC 3D nanoimprint tool (Nanoscribe Photonic GT2) in our ISO 5 cleanroom. The microrobots were acoustically powered by applying an acoustic field, which caused them to rotate and move at high speeds. Further, the team also . The team is also working to make these tiny bots fully biodegradable so that they dissolve in the body after releasing the medication.

As we all know that diamond is a material marveled for its strength, beauty, and perfection. Perhaps, we did not imagine that it has the potential to be used as a platform for quantum technologies, that is nanodiamonds embedded in photonic circuits could have tremendous potential for many quantum applications such as long-distance quantum communication, quantum information processing and quantum sensing. It is the wide electronic bandgap that makes diamond an ideal host for a variety of optical active spin qubits that are key building blocks for quantum technologies. In quantum information science, the qubits are the ‘bits’ from individual atoms to photons, that can be used to store and/or process information. It is the basic information unit for quantum computers, for instance and one that can potentially hold more information than a binary bit (1s and 0s). Furthermore, a cornerstone for the . , associate fellow of JILA and assistant professor of the Department of Physics at CU Boulder, and his team have integrated ‘artificial atoms’ or ‘solid-state qubit’ in their silicon nitride (SiN) based photonic circuits. The latter can function as single photon-emitters or optically accessible spin qubits, including . The team has developed a new approach consisting of the precise assembly of nanodiamonds inside the SiN material, followed by the fabrication of photonic devices on the same SiN platform aligned with the nanodiamonds. In this work, the pick and place of the nanodiamonds was carried out using the COSINC FIB-SEM (FEI Nova 600i Nanolab). The team used the nanoprobe that is integrated with the dual beam FIB-SEM system for the transfer of the nanodiamonds, allowing the precise positioning of the nanodiamonds while imaging their positions by using the SEM capability at the same time. As a proof of concept, the team was able to assemble three nanodiamonds in a line on the thin-film SiN. This approach enables the interaction of the photons traveling inside the photonic circuit with different artificial atoms. It is worth noting that although most of the nanofabrication work was carried out elsewhere, most of the fabrication such as atomic layer deposition, electron beam lithography, reactive ion etching involved in this work should be achievable in the COSINC cleanroom in a few months as we are in the process of setting up these capabilities here. This integration approach developed by the Sun’s group and collaborators can lead the way for scalable manufacturing of quantum photonic circuits integrated with high-quality quantum emitters and spins such as nanodiamond. Based on this work, the future of large-scale quantum systems involving nanodiamonds for a wide range of quantum applications is looking bright and sparkly.