Academic and Summer 2017 outreach by graduate students: Physics Experiments for High-School Students during the Penn Summer Science Academy

Graduate Student Sarah Friedensen ran a lab group for the Penn Summer Science Academy’s program in Experimental Physics Research in which explored a range of topics (standing waves on violin strings, Chaldni plates, and approximate spheres (water balloons) using a high-speed camera to film each experiment, as well as a strobe light for the water balloon).
Sarah and the high school students also used the high-speed camera to film collisions between two-by-fours, objects hitting both water and ooblek, and the bursting of the water balloon and a balloon filled with ooblek.
Sarah helped guide the group with respect to what was achievable in the time frame of one week, and the students worked together to develop the specific phenomena they wanted to investigate (the group theme was “film analysis”).
The students ranged from sophomore to senior in high school and were in a group of four.
By the end of the session, through their own research, students had connected the results of their experiments to models of the hydrogen atom.

Graduate student Priyanka Thiruraman ran GEMS, a summer school program at SEAS for middle school girls, helping out with nanotechnology sessions from July 24 to July 28, 2017.
Priyanka ran two sessions on:

  1. DNA extraction from strawberries, where she also touched upon the concept of DNA sequencing and nanopores (our lab’s research), and
  2. Nanotechnology in basic physics. Experiments included polymer synthesis, non-Newtonian liquids, lasers/ optics, polarizers, kinetic sand etc. Students were also given a tour of the Singh center to see the fabrication facilities, scanning microscopes and most importantly “the microscope that occupies an entire room” aka TEM.

See the program and a video.

 

Graduate student Paul Masih Das was in charge until May 2017 of a volunteer group called Moelis Access Science Physics.
A team of about 10-12 undergrads and Paul would take equipment from the physics department (with the help of Bill Berner) every week and go to various public schools in West Philly (Sayre HS, West Philly HS, Comegys MS), where they performed introductory physics experiments with the students.
Paul has also given 1-2 hour outreach talks on DNA sequencing and our lab’s research in various location including the Comegys MS, Huey MS, and the Franklin Institute.
For the past two summers, Paul helped with the Franklin Institute’s Summer Camp.
A few other physics grad students and Paul went to the Franklin Institute every other week and performed an educational science activity with middle school children (building hovercrafts, learning about constellations, making circuits, etc.)

Synthesis and Physical Properties of Phase-Engineered Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayer Heterostructures

Carl H. Naylor, William M. Parkin, Zhaoli Gao, Joel Berry, Songsong Zhou, Qicheng Zhang, John Brandon McClimon, Liang Z. Tan, Christopher E. Kehayias, Meng-Qiang Zhao, Ram S. Gona, Robert W. Carpick, Andrew M. Rappe, David J. Srolovitz, Marija Drndic, and Alan T. Charlie Johnson

ACS Nano, 11 (9), pp 8619–8627
2017

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Graduate Student Sarah Friedensen awarded 2017 NSF Graduate Fellowship

Congratulations to Sarah Friedensen who received the 2017 NSF Graduate Fellowship. Sarah’s work includes electronics transport in topological and two-dimensional materials in the Drndic lab. At the 2017 APS March Meeting in New Orleans she gave a talk on “Electron-beam nanosculpting and materials analysis of exfoliated bismuth selenide”.

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Drndić lab alum Jessamyn Fairfield on ‘Smarter Machines’

Penn Physics alum Jessamyn Fairfield has written a feature for the March 2017 issue of Physics World about neuromorphic electronics, novel devices whose function mimics synaptic function.
Neuromorphic features can be realized in a variety of materials, from nanomaterials to polymers, and may enable the development of electronic skin, novel computational paradigms, or smart neuroprosthetics.
Jessamyn is currently a professor at NUI Galway in Ireland, and did her PhD research in the Drndic lab on semiconducting nanocrystal optoelectronics.

Full text of the article is available here: http://jessamynfairfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/PWMar17Fairfield.pdf

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Drndic Lab at Philly Materials Day

At this year’s Philly Materials Day hosted by Drexel University, the lab showcased a variety of demos to the general public.
Students and parents alike were first shown the process of isolating thin 2D materials such as graphene via mechanical exfoliation.
They were then able to see the principles behind 2D-material-based water desalination using interactive large-scale models of filtration devices.

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Large-area synthesis of high-quality monolayer 1T’-WTe2 flakes

Carl H Naylor, William M Parkin, Zhaoli Gao, Hojin Kang, Mehmet Noyan, Robert B Wexler, Liang Z Tan, Youngkuk Kim, Christopher E Kehayias, Frank Streller, Yu Ren Zhou, Robert Carpick, Zhengtang Luo, Yung Woo Park, Andrew M Rappe, Marija Drndić, James M Kikkawa and A T Charlie Johnson

2D Materials, 4 021008
2017

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Early Access to Graduate Research Workshop

Graduate students Paul Masih Das, Francis Chien, Jothi Priyanka Thiruraman, and Gopinath Danda participated in the Early Access to Graduate Research workshop series at the nearby Franklin Institute.
They spent the afternoon teaching high school students from the Science Leadership Academy about the history, structure, and function of DNA.
The students also learned about various 2D materials and how they can be used in nanopore DNA sequencing.

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Physics at Masterman Middle and High School

Prof. Drndic gave a physics talk to about two hundred curious fifth graders in the Masterman Middle & High School. She talked about subfields of physics, how to become a physicists, and covered topics in kinematics (mass, velocity, force, energy, work) as well as example of motion in two dimensions, pendula, motion in two dimensions, momentum, collisions, motion on the inclined plane, as well as explained the origin behind gravitational acceleration. She also showed mechanics demos.
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2D materials advances: from large scale synthesis and controlled heterostructures to improved characterization techniques, defects and applications

Zhong Lin, Amber McCreary, Natalie Briggs, Shruti Subramanian, Kehao Zhang, Yifan Sun, Xufan Li, Nicholas J Borys, Hongtao Yuan, Susan K Fullerton-Shirey, Alexey Chernikov, Hui Zhao, Stephen McDonnell, Aaron M Lindenberg, Kai Xiao, Brian J LeRoy, Marija Drndić, James C M Hwang, Jiwoong Park, Manish Chhowalla, Raymond E Schaak, Ali Javey, Mark C Hersam, Joshua Robinson, and Mauricio Terrones

2D Materials, 3
2016

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Outreach talk : Science and Comedy: Creativity in Public Engagement

Tue 12/6/2016 2-3pm Singh 221

Jessamyn Fairfield, NUI Galway, Hosted by Prof. Marija Drndic

Jessamyn organized creative and effective education and public engagement initiatives for the AMBER materials research centre at Trinity College Dublin.
Her most successful project has been the development of Bright Club Dublin, a monthly research/comedy variety night featuring academics alongside comedians in a night of idea-driven entertainment.
Jessamyn is also a frequent contributor to Futureproof, the Newstalk science show.

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Science Talk: Nanomaterials for Neuromorphic Devices

Mon, 12/5/2016 12-1pm Singh035

Jessamyn Fairfield, NUI Galway, Hosted by Marija Drndic

Imagine a world where materials can heal themselves and electronics are built to learn the way your brain does, all using wires tinier than a human hair.
My research lab at NUI Galway is focused on taking that world from science fiction to science fact!
We take materials that are very small, or nanoscale, in one dimension, spray them onto a variety of surfaces, and try to make circuitry from them.
Networks of nanowires are memristive, which means that their electronic behavior depends on their measurement history.

We use metal nanowires that can be sprayed onto a variety of surfaces to create random networks.
Light or electricity can change these networks of nanowires in useful ways.
Where two nanowires cross to form a junction, light or electricity can change the strength of the junction.
These individual changes change the overall behaviour of the network.
The changes are self-healing, so electrical currents can route around damaged sections of network.
The network also becomes ‘smarter’ controlled changes create new meaningful patterns of response to particular complex stimuli.
When they are built, traditional silicon architectures for computing have fixed structure and implicit fixed digital modes of computation.
Nanowire networks can create flexible computational modes that can adapt on the fly, which makes nanowire networks more like brains than like silicon chips.

*light lunch will be provided

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Penn Summer Science Academy

This July, Prof. Drndic gave a research presentation to high school students from the Penn Summer Science Academy (PSSA).
Roughly 40 students went on a tour of our lab, in coordination with Bill Berner, where they learned about the process of fabricating and testing a solid-state nanopore.
They also learned about the wide variety of techniques and instrumentation that we use: chemical vapor deposition, photolithography, electron beam nanosculpting, and DNA translocation experiments.
More information about the Academy can be found here: http://www.physics.upenn.edu/~pssa/.

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Sarah Friedensen awarded Arnold M. Denenstein Prize

This award is provided from an endowment established by the family, friends, and colleagues of Arnold M. Denenstein to honor his memory and his contributions to science. Awarded annually to a graduate student, judged by the Physics and Astronomy Department, who shows the most promise of becoming and outstanding experimental physicist.

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Monolayer single-crystal 1T’-MoTe2 grown by chemical vapor deposition exhibits a weak antilocalization effect

Carl H. Naylor, William M. Parkin, Jinglei Ping, Zhaoli Gao, Yu Ren Zhou, Youngkuk Kim, Frank Streller, Robert W Carpick, Andrew M. Rappe, Marija Drndic, James M. Kikkawa, and A.T. Charlie Johnson

Nano Letters, 2016, 16 (7), pp 4297–4304
2016

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NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

Graduate students Hannah Hughes received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and Paul Masih Das received the NSF Honorable Mention. Rebecca Engelke and Bart Machielse, who did their undergraduate research and authored several papers while in our lab, have also received the 2016 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship 2016. We wish them a great time during their PhD years at Harvard Physics, and we are looking forward to following their new scientific results!

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Philly Science Festival

The Drndic group, Science Outreach Initiative of the School of Arts and Sciences, and Project BioEyes from University of Pennsylvania demonstrated how DNA affects physical features in living organisms, like zebrafish, and the importance of DNA sequencing in an educational exhibit at Philadelphia Science Festival on Saturday April 30 2016 as a part of National DNA Day initiative. Children from all age groups visited the booth, which was aptly titled “What Can Fish Tell Us About DNA?”, and learned about how a small
change in DNA sequence can create two different types of zebrafish – wildtype and albino – and how nanopore sequencing technology can help us find these differences easily.
Microscopes were installed in the booth to observe the physical differences between the two types of zebrafish larvae and adult, following which the visitor was handed an index card with a fish scale printed on one side and a colored DNA code on the other. These cards could then be inserted into punched envelopes revealing a specific color code, very similar to how nanopore DNA sequencing technology works. The color codes could be matched up to a map aiding in classification of the fish scale into the two types of fishes. A “DNA inside a nanopore” bracelet were also given to every visitor, which consisted of a colored strip of paper inside a rectangular movable sleeve with a hole in the middle.

The booth was managed by the volunteers from both the participating groups from 10 am to 4 pm at Penn’s Landing, Philadelphia. This exhibit was one of the two demonstrations which Drndic group participated in during the Philadelphia Science Festival, the other being “Nanopore Explorin’” on the previous Sunday, April 24 2016 in the Singh Nanotechnology Center, Philadelphia.

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Plenary Lecture at ImPACT International Symposium on InSECT 2016: Ultrahigh-speed and multiplexed sensing system using Incredibly Smart, Efficient and Compact devices by insect Technology (InSECT)

  • 2016/04/26
  • April 26-27, 2016
  • Plenary Lecture at ImPACT International Symposium on InSECT 2016: Ultrahigh-speed and multiplexed sensing system using Incredibly Smart, Efficient and Compact devices by insect Technology (InSECT)
  • Nagoya University, Nagoya Japan
  • Website

Philly Science Festival

Drndić lab participate at two Philadelphia Science Festival events on April 24 and April 30, 2016.

The Drndic Lab has partnered with Dr. Slavko Milekic at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts to create two educational tools for this year’s Philadelphia Science Festival. The first “scanimation” uses an artistic technique known as persistence of vision to give the illusion of a fish swimming through an array of nanopores. The other is a cartoon-based game in which the user must guess the weight of characters in an elevator, effectively modeling nanopore DNA sequencing. Both tools are presented on portable tablet devices and suitable for a wide range of audiences.

Also, the Drndic Lab has developed a virtual nanopore app. Developed for Google Cardboard, the user can experience the actual translocation of a DNA strand through a nanopore in a stunning virtual reality environment.

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Graphene 2016 (Presentation by Dr. Adrian Balan on April 21, 2016, "The effect of defects on the electrical and phonon properties of graphene and MoS2")

Presentation by Dr. Adrian Balan on April 21, 2016, “The effect of defects on the electrical and phonon properties of graphene and MoS2”

  • 2016/04/21
  • April 19-21
  • Graphene 2016 (Presentation by Dr. Adrian Balan on April 21, 2016, “The effect of defects on the electrical and phonon properties of graphene and MoS2”)
  • Genova, Italy

In Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy Modulation of Transport in Graphene Nanoribbons

Julio A. Rodríguez-Manzo, Zhengqing John Qi, Alexander Crook, Jae-Hyuk Ahn, A. T. Charlie Johnson, and Marija Drndić

ACS Nano, 2016, 10 (4), pp 4004–4010
2016

ACS Editors’ Choice Article

Marija Drndic discussed the in situ transmission electron microscopy modulation of transport in graphene nanoribbons. Hear this in Episode 105 of the ACS Nano Podcast.

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Anisotropic Electron-Photon and Electron-Phonon Interactions in Black Phosphorus

Xi Ling, Shengxi Huang, Eddwi H. Hasdeo‡, Liangbo Liang, William M. Parkin, Yuki Tatsumi, Ahmad R. T. Nugraha, Alexander A. Puretzky, Paul Masih Das, Bobby G. Sumpter, David B. Geohegan, Jing Kong, Riichiro Saito, Marija Drndic, Vincent Meunier, and Mildred S. Dresselhaus

Nano Letters, 16 (4), pp 2260–2267
2016

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Drndic Lab at the Philadelphia Science Carnival

Graduate students Francis Chien Chen-Chi, Gopinath Danda, and Paul Masih Das are leading our group’s outreach effort at the Philadelphia Science Carnival, to be held on April 30th, 2016.
This is also part of the National DNA Day.

We are collaborating with the BioEYES, a partnership to advance K-12 science education.
We will present an integrated research exhibit spanning a range of topics related to DNA and genomics research.
We will discuss how the eye color in zebrafish is related to DNA and DNA sequencing.

We know that DNA is what genes are made up of, and that genes are responsible for the way we look and the traits we have.
Fish are an excellent animal model that allows us to visually study how the trait of dark pigmentation vs. albinism gets passed down from parents to offspring.
The title of this collaborative exhibit will be “What can a fish teach us about DNA?

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Magnetoresistance (MR) of twisted bilayer graphene on electron transparent substrate

Sung Ju Hong, Julio A. Rodríguez-Manzo, Kyung Ho Kim, Min Park, Seung Jae Baek, Dmitry I. Kholin, Minwoo Lee, Eun Sang Choi, Dae Hong Jeong, Dawn A. Bonnell, Eugene J. Mele, Marija Drndic, A.T. Charlie Johnson, Yung Woo Park

Synthetic Metals, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 15 January 2016
2015

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EFRI Collaboration Kickoff

Led by Marija, a team with our collaborators from RPI, Rochester, Penn State and Northeastern won a 2M NSF EFRI grant. We held a kickoff meeting in August to get the ball rolling. More about the NSF grant here.

Included was a proposed portable museum exhibit to explain the concept of nanopore-based DNA sequencing, in partnership with the Franklin Museum in Philadelphia and Prof. Slavko Milekic (The University of the Arts).

Read more from PennNews.

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Bart Machielse Selected As MIT Summer Scholar

Undergraduate student Bart Machielse was selected as one of twelve MIT summer scholars
from June 7 to August 8, 2015. Bart was chosen among 156 applicants.

University of Pennsylania junior physics major Bartholomeus Machielse says, “I’m looking forward to meeting scientists from around the country and to experiencing the unique research environment that MIT offers, while continuing to develop the skills I’ll need to one day run my own lab.” Machielse was lead co-author of “Improving Signal-to-Noise Performance for DNA Translocation in Solid-State Nanopores at MHz Bandwidths” (Nano Letters, Nov. 21, 2014) under Prof. Marija Drndić, Professor of Physics at Penn.

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Drndić Lab presents at APS March Meeting 2015

Undergraduate Student, Rebecca Engelke, giving a talk at the APS march meeting 2015 in San Antonio.

The Drndić Lab traveled to APS March Meeting 2015 in San Antonio, Texas to give the following talks:

  • B1.00009 Effect of defects produced by electron irradiation on the electrical properties of graphene.
  • T15.00014 Reaching the Ionic Current Detection Limit in Silicon-Based Nanopores.
  • G43.00009 Improving signal-to-noise performance for DNA translocation in solid-state nanopores at MHz bandwidths.
  • G43.00010 DNA translocation measurements through low-capacitance solid-state nanopore chips at high bandwidths.
  • G43.00011 Up and down events in nanoparticle translocation through solid-state nanopores.
  • G48.00009 Obtaining structural information of small proteins using solid-state nanopores and high-bandwidth measurements.
  • T15.00003 Gold Nanorod translocations and charge measurement through solid-state nano pores.
  • W47.00010 Thinning silicon-based membranes with electron irradiation for solid-state nanopore sensors.

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Paul Masih Das releases iPhone sequencing game Master Sequencer

Now available on the iTunes store!

In Master Sequencer, the player runs along a DNA strand, effectively threading it through a nanopore and allowing it to be sequenced. This model is based on nanopore DNA sequencing, in which characteristic current changes due to the presence of a DNA base-pair in a nanopore are converted into a DNA sequence. In both the game and reality, sequencing is terminated when the DNA strand crashes into the membrane. The iOS game is similar to the well-known Temple Run and appeals to a wide range of audiences.

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Marija Drndić selected as Penn Fellow

Prof. Marija Drndić has been chosen as a Penn Fellow for the next two years. The Penn Fellows program is designed to provide a select group of developing campus leaders with an opportunity to build University-wide networks, think strategically about higher education, and learn more about Penn and its programs by interacting informally with members of the University’s executive team.
Information about the current Fellows is listed at provost.upenn.edu/penn-fellows.

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Second Annual AMC8 Math Day at Greenfield Elementary School

For the second year in a row, Marija is organizing the Greenfield Math Day in Albert Greenfield Elementary School in Center City, Philadelphia, to be held on November 18, 2014. (Any interested parents or children from other local schools interested to participate are welcome to contact Marija).
Last year, the whole middle school consisting of about 200 students participated. The AMC8 is an international competition consisting of 25 multiple-choice questions and students have 40 minutes to work on it initiated by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). MAA encourages all students in grades 6, 7 and 8 to participate in the AMC 8. All USA, USA embassy, Canadian and foreign school students in grade 8 or below are eligible to participate. Especially talented students as young as 8 years old have participated in the past.

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Philly Science Festival

Come see our work at the Philly Science Festival Carnival on May 3, 2014.

The Carnival runs from 10am to 4pm, and our group will demonstrate our work at a booth between
21st and 22nd on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The Philadelphia science carnival features more than 175 exhibitors offering non-stop, family-friendly experiments, interactive activities, games, and a packed line-up of live entertainment. Enjoy making slime, meeting live zoo animals, checking out the inner-workings of robots, taking a tour of a helicopter, extracting DNA from a strawberry, testing a “crime scene” for forensic evidence, and so much more!

For more information, please go to philasciencefestival.org

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Graphene Nanoribbon-Nanopore Devices for DNA Sequencing

Graphene-based nanopore devices are promising candidates for next-generation DNA sequencing. In this paper, we fabricated graphene nanoribbon-nanopore (GNR-NP) sensors for DNA detection. GNR conductance was monitored in situ during electron irradiation-induced nanopore formation inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM). We show that GNR resistance increases linearly with electron dose and that GNR conductance and mobility decrease by a factor of ten or more when GNRs are imaged at relatively high magnification with a broad beam prior to making a nanopore. By operating the TEM in scanning TEM (STEM) mode, in which the position of the converged electron beam can be controlled with high spatial precision via automated feedback, we were able to prevent electron beam-induced damage and make nanopores in highly conducting GNR sensors. This method minimizes the exposure of the GNRs to the beam before and during nanopore formation. The resulting GNRs with unchanged resistances after nanopore formation can sustain microampere currents at low voltages (around 50 mV) in buffered electrolyte solution and exhibit high sensitivity, with a large relative change of resistance upon changes of gate voltage, similar to pristine GNRs without nanopores.

Selected Press:

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Differentiation of DNA Homopolymers

In a recent ACS Nano paper, “Differentiation of Short, Single-Stranded DNA Homopolymers in Solid-State Nanopores”, we show that small solid-state nanopores similar in size to protein nanopores, combined with an optimized setup, can differentiate between single-stranded DNA homopolymers (with A, C, and T bases).

Selected press:

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Collective Fluorescence Enhancement In Nanoparticle Clusters

In a recent Nature Communications paper, “Collective fluorescence enhancement in nanoparticle clusters”, we show that blinking nanorods interact with each other in a cluster, and the interactions affect the blinking statistics.

Selected press:

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Lauren Willis Makes The Cover Of Science

Graduate student Lauren Willis used high resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to image gold particles attached to peptides wrapped around individual single wall nantubes (SWNTs), which allowed quantitative analysis of particle spacing and configuration to confirm the computational model of the complex.
This paper, Computational Design of Virus-Like Protein Assemblies on Carbon Nanotube Surfaces, was selected for the cover of Science.

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Seeking Postdoc Applications

We are seeking postdoc applications from outstanding candidates to join our effort on the advancement of fundamental science of ion/biomolecule/nanopore systems and the development of new sequencing technologies based on nanopores in graphene-based and silicon nitride-based platforms.
Expertise in nanofabrication, electron beam lithography, transmission electron microscopy, electrical measurements with nanopores and microfluidics, biological sample preparation and handling, is a plus.
Please send your interest to Prof. Drndić at drndic@physics.upenn.edu.

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