Nanotechnology, the future workforce and more
Air Force Research Laboratory
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AFRL celebrates 20th anniversary of STARBASE STEM program
AFRL recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Department of Defense STARBASE Wright-Patt.
Since 2003, more than 47,000 students have participated in the K-12 DOD STEM outreach program managed by the Wright-Patterson Education Outreach Office, primarily supporting fifth-grade students
“STARBASE is a shining example of what we can accomplish when the military, educators and community join forces to invest in our youth,” said AFRL Commander Brig. Gen. Jason E. Bartolomei. “That’s a pretty powerful thing.”
“This program teaches our kids to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and team players, skills that apply anywhere their dreams may take them,” Bartolomei added
The initiative began 20 years ago when Kathy Schweinfurth, chief, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Educational Outreach Program, and Dr. Vince Russo with the University of Dayton’s School of Engineering, advocated for a science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, program that would allow more children in the community to gain exposure to STEM activities, said Dan Andrews, AFRL STEM division chief.
Lab Life: Big to Nano
Experts in the field of nanotechnology, recently joined the AFRL Lab Life Podcast alongside host Kenneth McNulty and special guest host Dr. Braden Brough, Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, to discuss nanotechnology and bring this large topic area down to scale.?
Dr. Richard Vaia of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Dr. Jesse Tice of Northrop Grumman, and Dr. Anna Balazs of the University of Pittsburgh explored the process of manipulating and manufacturing materials and devices on the scale of atoms or small groups of atoms.
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While the average person may never touch nanomaterials, they are used in many applications in our daily lives, including the quantum dots within television displays and flat optics that focus and correct light onto cell phone camera lenses.
“Everything is made from something.? Even the Wright Brothers benefited from nanotechnology. ?Charlie Taylor, who worked with the Wrights, used new casting methods to create the Wright Flyer’s aluminum block engine.? Although he did not know it at the time, his approach produced nanostructures that strengthened the walls of the cylinders, delivering an engine that surpassed expectations, and enabling the first flight,” said Dr. Vaia.
In order to interact with the microscopic world of nanotechnology, scientists use unique devices such as electron and atomic microscopes. They also use specialized tools to help them with their proposed tasks and experiments at the atomic scale.
“These tools have enabled us to find things we have not seen before, understand them, and then take our engineering minds and make something with what we discovered,” said Dr. Vaia.
Among these new and interesting tools available is the Quantum Press, a device that can exfoliate single atomic layers of what we call two dimensional materials.
“An example of a two-dimensional material is graphene, which became famous in 2010 for winning its Nobel Prize. But since then, a lot of two-dimensional types of materials beyond graphene have been discovered. And with this quantum press, we're able to build a library essentially layer by layer and study these multifunctional properties. Including how they conduct heat, how they conduct electricity, and make devices where we can study their electronic and photonic behavior, which in itself is just neat to be able to control matter and be able to visualize it at the nanoscale,” said Dr. Tice
“One of the challenges that we work on here at the Air Force Research Lab, in partnership with Dr. Tice and other folks in the industry, is connecting the potentials that nanotechnology has to the applications it produces, and it is a complex path from innovation to application,” said Dr. Vaia.
It's an exciting time to be in the nanotechnology field, and as technologies continue to evolve so will the possibilities.
To learn more about nanotechnology, and our Lab Life podcast guests listen to the full podcast.
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