research

The necstlab group has interests that span fundamental materials synthesis questions through to structural applications of both hybrid and traditional materials. This includes longstanding projects in MEMS and now bioNEMS/MEMS. While not all-encompassing, much of the group’s work supports the efforts of the NECST Consortium, an aerospace industry-supported research initiative that seeks to develop the underlying understanding to create enhanced-performance advanced composites using nanotechnology. Beyond the NECST Consortium Members, necstlab research is supported by industry, AFOSR, ARO, NASA, NIST, NSF, ONR, and others. 2012 Research Poster

Structural Supercapacitor Composites

Nanoengineered Composite Architectures

Bulk Nanocomposite Laminates

Ceramic Matrix Nanocomposites

Structural Electronics

Nanostructures

past and current research projects include

  • BioNEMS materials design and implementation in microfluidics
  • Buckling mechanics
  • Carbon nanostructure synthesis from non-traditional catalysts
  • Continuous growth of aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs)
  • Electroactive nanoengineered actuator/sensor architectures focusing on ion transport
  • Nanoengineered (hybrid) composite architectures for laminate-level mechanical performance improvement: Multifunctional properties including damage sensing and detection, Manufacturing
  • Polymer nanocomposite mechanics and electrical and thermal transport
  • Si MEMS devices including piezoelectric energy harvesters, microfabricated solid oxide fuel cells, stress characterization, and 3D MEMS
  • VACNT characterization and physical properties

collaborators

We maintain significant collaborations around the MIT campus, particularly with faculty in the Depts. of Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemical Engineering, and MIT labs and centers including the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN), Materials Processing Center (MPC), Center for Materials Science and Engineering (CMSE), and the Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL), as well as Harvard’s Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS). Important to the contributions of the necstlab are collaborations with leading research groups from around the world (see below) through formal and informal collaborations.

Prof. Dhimiter Bello, Work Environment, Nanomanufacturing Center for Excellence, Biomedical Engineering & Biotechnology Program, at UMass-Lowell

Dr. Hulya Cebeci* at Istanbul Technical Univ.

Professor Hai M. Duong* at his Nanoengineering Materials Laboratory at the National University of Singapore

Prof. Kenneth Goodson, Stanford Microscale Heat Transfer Laboartory, Stanford Univ.

Dr. Roberto Guzmán de Villoria* at IMDEA Materials Institute, Madrid, Spain

Professor Dimitrios Papavassiliou and the Computational Transport Processes group at the Univ. of Oklahoma

Professor H. Thomas Hahn and the Multifunctional Composites Laboratory at UCLA

Prof. A. John Hart* and his Mechanosynthesis Group at MIT

Prof. Stephan Hofmann, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

Dr. Seungbum Hong‘s Interfacial Materials group from Argonne National Laboratory

Dr. Alex Liddle’s group from NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Professors Shigeo Maruyama and Junichiro Shiomi from the Fullerene and Carbon Nanotube and Nano-Therm Laboratory at the Univ. of Tokyo

Prof. Qiming Zhang, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University

Prof. Karl Schulte and the Polymer Composites Section, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH)

Prof. James Seferis and his Polymer Composites Laboratory formerly of the Univ. of Washington

Prof. Mehmet Toner and the BioMEMS Resource Center at Mass. General Hospital and Harvard Univ.

Prof. Daniel Wagner and the Composite Materials Mechanics at the Weizmann Institute of Science

Prof. Ignace Verpoest, chair of the Leuven Materials Research Centre, Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium