Mechanical Science and Engineering, UIUC

Nanoscale science and technology has been an important frontier in research and development in the past decade. Miniaturization is a major driving force behind these research activities. As the characteristic dimensions of devices and MEMS/NEMS components become smaller, however, the surface to volume ratio of these components increases significantly. Consequently, many surface phenomena such as capillary interactions become increasingly important. Many scientific issues of these phenomena can be best understood using the mechanics approach. In this presentation, I will use several particular case studies to demonstrate that mechanics can indeed be a powerful tool to help understand these phenomena and provide guidance for nanomanufacturing and device-making. These case studies include the self-assembling process of a 3-D photovoltaic device made of thin silicon foil (cover article in Dec 2009 issue of PNAS), and mechanics of formation of GaAs nanotube arrays driven residual stress at the nanoscale. In all these cases, models were developed to help identify the mechanisms controlling the behavior of these processes. Critical parameters emerge naturally from these analyses which can be used to guide the device formation and manufacturing of nanoscale components.

Biography:

K. Jimmy Hsia is Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering at theUniversityofIllinoisat Urbana Champaign (UIUC). He received his B.S. in Engineering Mechanics fromTsinghuaUniversity,Beijing,China, and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. His research interests include deformation and failure mechanisms of materials at ambient and elevated temperatures, mciro/nanomechanics of materials, and nanoscale phenomena in biomaterials. He has served on the Editorial Advisory Board, Acta Mechanica Solida Sinica, and as Guest Editor/Co-Editor for several special issues of Materials Science and Engineering. He is a Fellow of ASME and recipient of an NSF Research Initiation Award, a Max-Planck Society Scholarship, a Japan Society for Promotion of Science Fellowship, and an Associate of Center for Advanced Study at UIUC. From 2005-2007, Jimmy Hsia served as Founding Director of Nano and Bio Mechanics Program in the Directorate for Engineering at NSF. Jimmy Hsia is Associate Dean ofGraduateCollegeat UIUC. He is Associate Director of an NSF Science andTechnologyCenteron Emergent Behavior of Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS), a $25Mcenter through a partnership of MIT, UIUC, and GaTech. He is the current Director of Global Enterprise of MicroMechanics and Molecular Medicine (GEM4), an organization founded by Prof. Subra Suresh, Dean of Engineering at MIT.