Mark Tuominen

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Nanoscale Physics, Fuel Cells and Electric
Bacteria
A brief overview of research in the Tuominen group
Mark Tuominen Department of Physics NSF
Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center
"Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing" NSF
Chemical Bonding Center "Fueling the Future"
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Nanofabrication for Nanoscale Device Physics
Direct-write patterning
Diblock copolymer lithography
Electron-beam lithography
Advanced deposition and etching techniques
Involves a variety of nanofabrication techniques
and several interdisciplinary collaborations
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A Few Recent Examples Nanostructures 10 nm and
up
Transport devices
Nanomagnet clusters
Plasmonic arrays of nanodots and nanorings
Magnetic Electronic Photonic
Multi-level data storage elements
Nanomagnet arrays
Metallic, semiconducting, magnetic nanostructures
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Proton Transport A fuel cell issue
Proton Conductor

• Proton conductor -- conducts protons, but not
  electrons or anything else, ideally
• Currently, water-containing materials are used.
  One goal is to use anhydrous polymers that can
  work at 200C.
• Our goal is to understand the physics of proton
  transport in detail and advance the performance
  of proton conductors.

H2
O2
H2O
V
I
Grotthuss mechanism
load
"Fueling the Future" project
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Electric Bacteria Geobacter
geobacter fuel cell
geobacter
anode
biological nanowires
pili
"Geobacter project" www.geobacter.org