Principal Investigator Martin Culpepper
Current fabrication methods and materials technology at the nano-scale offer fundamental limitations in the size and performance of nano-scale mechanisms. The aim of this research is to generate the design processes, design knowledge, and the supporting design tools required to engineer the smallest possible mechanical devices, CNT-based mechanisms. These devices use the rigid and compliant structural modes of CNTs to for nano-scale mechanical devices capable of complex motions. Present efforts are aimed at molecular modeling of the devices. Prototype fabrication efforts are in a nascent stage.