Centre for NEMS and Nanophotonics Film - MRS (Materials Research Society) TV

Description

An appeal from the Centre for NEMS and Nanophotonics (CNNP), IIT Madras

About the cause

The Microelectronics Laboratory at the EE department of IIT Madras is one of the earliest in this area, set up first by Prof MK Achuthan with German collaboration in the 1970s. By the 1990s, under the stewardship of Prof. KN Bhat, assisted by Mr. PRS Rao, the laboratory had developed to be one of the best equipped academic laboratories - training many students, producing MS/PhDs and papers.

A laboratory with sophisticated instruments needs careful handling and nurturing to keep them going. Microelectronics is an area that strides ahead at an exponential rate globally. To be able to plan and carry out activities in niche areas, where one can still make a contribution, is not an easy task. In the late '90s, the MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) activity brought some relief as far as the technological pressure is concerned, as micrometres are definitely more fab friendly than the sub-nanometer scale. Again, we were one of the first laboratories in India to start MEMS design, fabrication and testing with a clean room and new facilities added.

In 2011, we had a big transformation through generous funding from the Department of Electronics and IT (DeITY), and support from IIT Madras.

The Centre for NEMS and Nanophotonics (CNNP) was set up with 5000 sq ft of Clean Room space and several sophisticated processes and characterisation equipment. CNNP, involving faculty members (22 core and 70 users) from departments (EE, ME, MME, AM, BT, ED, Chemical, Physics) across the institute, caters to researchers from IITM as well as outside. Ongoing research is in areas of silicon photonics, biosensors, RF and optical MEMS, GaN HEMT, organic electronics, diffractive optical elements, ultrasonic nanoscopy, microfluidics, and involves both technology and modelling.

To know more about the Centre: Click here

How the money will be used

CNNP has been approached by MRS TV to create a video film to be screened during the MRS spring meeting in April 2018. The cost for this is Rs 15 lakhs. Since MRS is well attended, we feel this would be a good exposure for the CNNP in terms of both attracting new faculty and to put forward that our facilities are available for prototyping devices and components. This would go a long way to sustain and optimally utilize the CNNP facilities.

We request our alumni to contribute generously towards this.