Illinois State University’s Dr. Mahua Biswas received a nearly $180,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue work on the patterning of nanostructures.
The $179,285 grant is part of the highly selective Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) program. Biswas has received this early career award from the Division of Material Research (DMR) under the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. The research group in Biswas’ laboratory works to develop inorganic nanostructures derived from various polymers—a substance commonly used to make plastics. The work is of interest for emerging nanomaterial-based devices such as in solar cells, LEDs, and high-speed memory chips.
“We will employ a synthesis approach called Sequential Infiltration Synthesis, or SIS, to fabricate patterns of nanometer dimension structures of nitride class of materials for this project,” said Biswas, an assistant professor of physics at Illinois State. “The funding will allow us to investigate the growth mechanism of the nitride materials, patterning nitrides with polymers as template as well as optical properties of these nanostructures with different shapes morphologies.” Biswas is also collaborating with scientists at Argonne National Laboratory and Dr. Uttam Manna at ISU for this work.
Biswas was also the principal investigator of a recent $403,900 NSF grant to purchase a state-of-the-art electron microscope that will be used by students, scientists, and educators across Central Illinois.
