A hearty round of applause for our 2023 Award Winners. We continue to be impressed by the terrific work of our awardees. These individuals were celebrated at the annual RTNN Awards and Appreciation Dinner last month, which was held at BoxyardRTP.

2023 RTNN Student Awards

The RTNN Student Outreach award recognizes a student for exemplary leadership, initiative, and ongoing commitment to the mission of expanding access to RTNN nanotechnology user facilities.

• Winston Lindqwister (Duke University) has been an RTNN Student Ambassador for over 3 years now and has been an invaluable member of the outreach programs that reach various communities, including rural outreach missions to tribal communities, Girl Scouts STEM Day, and the UNC Wonder Connection, which helps bring fun and engaging STEM activities to young inpatients at UNC hospitals.
• Morgan Heckman (Duke University) is relatively new to the RTNN Outreach mission, but has been intently engaged since seeking out a way to be involved in STEM outreach after arriving at Duke in November 2022. Morgan is already helping at numerous RTNN outreach events on her nights and weekends, as well as mentoring a first-gen/low-income URM student that she helped recruit into her graduate advisor’s research laboratory.
• Kathleen Bordewieck (NC State University) is part of a group of students involved with RTNN outreach from the NC State College of Education, where her experience and participation over the past three years has helped continuously ensure the success of our Nano Innovations Challenge and NanoDays outreach events, as well as assisting with the RET research program in its execution.
• Keith Markham (NC State University) is an Electrical & Computer Engineering doctoral candidate  who has excelled enough in nanofabrication staff that he has become a leader in the research group he is part of and also has begun helping NNF staff with facility needs within the NNF in a time of considerable growth and changes by helping develop SOPs and set up new equipment.

2023 Collaborative Research Award

Akash Singh (Duke)

Faculty Collaborators: David Mitzi (Duke), Harald Ade (NC State)

Research Participants: Yongshin Kim (Duke), Reece Henry (NC State)

Unlocking Glass Formation in Halide Perovskites: Integrating Ultrafast Calorimetry and Multifaceted Characterization for Phase Change Applications

Outcome of the Project
1. The obtained results in the project have been recently published in the “Journal of
American Chemical Society”, ACS publications.
Paper Title: “Study of Glass Formation and Crystallization Kinetics in a 2D Metal Halide
Perovskite Using Ultrafast Calorimetry”
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c06342
Publication Date (Web): August 08, 2023
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.3c06342
2. The obtained results from the project have also been presented at two conferences (oral
talks):
a) 2023 Materials Research Society fall meeting and exhibit, Boston on November 28, 2023
titled ‘Glass formation in Metal Halide Perovskite using Ultrafast Calorimetry’.
b) 2023 Carolina Science Symposium, Raleigh on November 17, 2023, titled ‘Glass
formation in Metal Halide Perovskite using Ultrafast Calorimetry’.
3. The work was further highlighted in the international magazine ‘Perovskite-Info’ on
August 16, 2023, titled ‘Researchers deepen understanding of glass formation and
crystallization kinetics in 2D metal halide perovskites’.
https://www.perovskite-info.com/researchers-deepen-understanding-glass-formation-andcrystallization-kinetics

The 2024 RTNN Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program has now concluded. 12 students from across the nation spent 10 weeks in the Research Triangle doing novel research on hybrid perovskite materials and presented their research at the NNCI REU Convocation in Nebraska. Student participants in this program also enjoy many opportunities for professional development, networking, and industry exposure in addition to their research experience. If you are interested in joining future programs, please see our webpage and stay updated, or email us at rtnanonetwork@ncsu.edu to register interest! Applications will be opening this Fall, pending renewal of the program.

For more information, please see the full program webpage here.

Our congratulations go out to Amar Kumbhar and Emily Moreno-Hernandez for winning national awards from the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) in these award categories: User Support (Kumbhar) and Education and Outreach (Moreno-Hernandez).

Amar, currently a Research Associate in the Chapel Hill Analytical and Nanofabrication Laboratory (CHANL), he has provided exceptional technical support for 15 years. This support includes training and maintenance on SEM, TEM, FIB and AFM, as well as preparing samples for electron microscopy analysis. Despite being the only staff member in CHANL that manages these tools, Amar is able to provide exceptional services to a broad range of users. His broad knowledge of characterization techniques, material types, and specimen preparation techniques has enables him to interface with and provide exceptional support to a wide range of institutions and departments, thereby facilitating convergence in the RTNN. For instance, he has worked with 11 departments at UNC, including some unconventional departments such as anthropology, dentistry, geology, and dentistry. In the last four years, he has provided technical support to 16 other universities and 25 companies. In this time frame, he has supported 384 users, including 295 internal, 50 external academic, and 39 industry. In many cases, his support for users has led to co-authorship in research collaborations where he has used his expertise in electron microscopy techniques to study unique materials systems.

Emily is a Program Coordinator at Duke University’s Shared Materials Instrumentation Facility. Using her lived experience as a former science teacher, Emily has significantly enhanced our communication with and outreach to local schools. Emily’s exceptional leadership and contributions to the Duke and RTNN Outreach team over this past year has led to significant growth in the number of outreach activities and participating students, educators, and researchers. This past year Emily coordinated and participated in 62 outreach events that served over 3600 students and educators, including 26 group visits to the Duke SMIF facility, 24 visits of the SMIF Outreach team to regional schools, libraries and community centers, and 12 live virtual events. Emily manages and operates our portable SEM, used for both in-house demonstrations and off-site, to bring nanotechnology equipment directly to the public, particularly aimed at serving underrepresented, low income, and rural populations.

Keep up the good work!

A big thank you to everyone who submitted an image in the 2023 RTNN Image Competition. We are excited to announce the winners. These images were submitted as part of the annual  NNCI Image Contest, There’s Plenty of Beauty at the Bottom. 

These images will be submitted to the next level to compete at the national level of submissions across all of the NNCI. Please make sure to go to the NNCI website and vote for your favorites! Voting closes October 17, 2023.

Vote here: https://nnci.net/plenty-beauty-bottom

Most Stunning

Perovskite Crop Circles
Alicia Bryan, UNC-Chapel Hill

Methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI₃) perovskite deposited on a mica substrate via chemical vapor deposition, demonstrating epitaxial rod-like structures and pyramidal crystallites. Image taken on FEI Helios 600 Nanolab Dual Beam System with a surface tilt of 45 degrees.

Most Whimsical

Giant Cabbage
Jack Almeter and James Loveless, NC State University

This image depicts an overhead view of an attempt to epitaxially coalesce AlGaN over GaN ridges. Coalescence was not complete, resulting in trenches reminiscent of furrowed farmland. Rogue nucleation has occurred at one point, perhaps due to contamination or an irregularity in the pattern. This large crystallite has an organic shape, here imagined as a giant cabbage worthy of the NC State Fair. A pair of farmers, taken from “Farmer with a Pitchfork” and “Song of the Lark” by 19th century American painter Winslow Homer, marvel at the vegetable in the foreground.

Most Unique Capability

A Witness of Evolution
Kyle Pan, Duke University

This plastic sheet, with its futuristic look, is now a living canvas of our soft morphing robots’ evolution. Its journey commenced as a mere glass cover sheet in the electron beam evaporation process, during the fabrication of our soft robot’s sensing functionalities. As the design progressed, we embraced an air-pocket design, and this sheet transformed into a photolithography mask, resulting in its various patterns on the sheet. Now, as we further improved in the soft robot fabrication, this resilient sheet stands as a laser-cut mask for oxidized liquid metal, capturing the essence of progress in our research.