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Conferences & lectures

Uses of graphene oxide on microsystems

A presentation by Anas Alazzam, PhD 10


Date & time
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Registration is closed

Speaker(s)

Anas Alazzam, PhD 10

Cost

Complimentary

Where

Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex
1515 St. Catherine W.
Room EV 2.309

Wheel chair accessible

Yes

Gina Cody School alumnus Anas Alazzam, PhD 10, will discuss the uses of graphene oxide (GO) and its reduced form (rGO) in microsystems.

There is a growing demand for low-cost, simple, and easy-to-fabricate films in the field of microfluidics and microsystems. This presentation will discuss the fabrication of graphene oxide films that are patterned, transparent, and electrically tunable.

Anas Alazzam, PhD 10

Associate professor, Mechanical Engineering, Khalifa University

After a brief Post-Doctoral Fellow appointment with the Canadian Space Agency, Dr. Anas Alazzam, PhD 10, joined Khalifa University in 2012 where he is currently an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and the head of the microfluidics lab.

In addition, he is a visiting associate professor in the department of electrical engineering at École de technologie supérieure ÉTS.

Alazzam has a research background in microfluidics, nanofluids, Dielectrophoresis, graphene, and healthcare applications of microdevices and more than one hundred peer-reviewed publications and a number of international patents.

Recently, he invented a portable device for pathogen detection for COVID-19, resulting in the formation of a spin-off company. Read more about this device in our story From Montreal to Abu Dhabi, Anas Alazzam traces his passion for mini-devices back to Concordia.

His research in the BioMEMS area has received substantial recognition in the form of awards and media appearances. He has been the Principal Investigator of numerous research projects with budgets exceeding $2 million. He has served as the advisor to numerous PhD and MSc students and postdoctoral fellows. He has reviewed numerous international research proposals, and over twenty scientific journals on invitation.

Dr. Alazzam is a member of the editorial board of Micromachines and PLOS ONE Journals.

Presentation details

Using a plasma-enhanced liftoff method, GO thin films are deposited and micropatterned on a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) substrate. Controlling the electrical conductivity of the patterned GO film via a variety of reduction processes, including thermal, chemical, and optical methods will be presented. After embedding GO films in a microfluidic channel, they are utilized to manipulate cancer and normal cells using Dielectrophoresis.

Dr Alazzam will also discuss microfluidic devices with patterned surface wettability for the separation of two-phase liquid systems. The surface wettability of COC is patterned using patterned GO films. The device separates water droplets that have been dispersed in oil. Inside the microchannel, the change in wettability caused by the patterned GO film directs water droplets to flow through a designated outlet to achieve separation to achieve on-chip continuous separation. As the wettability of a polymer's surface is crucial for cell-cell interaction and behavior. Attachment and growth of cells on patterned plasma-treated and GO-coated COC substrates will be discussed in this presentation. To regulate the growth of cells on the surface and to pattern the wettability of polymer substrates, both plasma and GO are utilized. The living cell has been successfully used as the fundamental unit of printing on the COC surface in both methods.

Another application of GO and rGO to be discussed is memristor. Memristor device (MR), a resistor with a memory, is an emerging technology of the type of resistive random access memory (RRAM). Dr Alazzam will go over the development of a novel planar analog memristor with a partially reduced Graphene Oxide (prGO) thin film, and the impact of the reduction techniques on the device's MR signature. This presentation will also cover additional applications of GO and rGO for flexible paper-based electronics, solar sensors, and inkless printing.

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