Synthesis of Nanopore Templates for Nickel Nanowires

The challenges our world will face in the next century are those that will test the limits of human ingenuity. With more people on earth each year the globe increasingly looks to science to find solutions to problems like: How do we sustainably generate energy and how do we increase data storage density? To tackle these challenges we turn to the smallest little wire you’ve ever seen, or rather can’t see. Using nanowires we are able to create solar panels that are much more efficient and create data storage devices a fraction of the size they are currently.

Over the course of our research we have created nanopore arrays on the surface of ultra pure aluminum. The fabrication and characterization of nanopores requires a multistep anodization process and careful imaging with a scanning electron microscope. If your finger was a 1 cm diameter circle, we could grow 15 billion of our nanopores on it. One huge challenge of this scale of work is understanding what is happening on the sample and how to create these ordered nanopore templates in a reproducible way when you can’t simply see them. The goal of our research project is to deposit wires in our templates and study their magnetic properties.

I plan to use my experience from research and studies at Sonoma State to work in engineering for a local thin film or semiconductor company. Over the next 10 years I plan to pursue a graduate degree either in an engineering field or in business.