(6aq) Micro/Nanoarchitectured Materials of Novel Surface Properties

My research interests focus on understanding the basic principles of – natural and synthetic – micro/nanostructured materials of intriguing surface properties. Working at an interdisciplinary intersection of materials, surface, and nano-science, I aim to incorporate propositional and experiential knowledge for design and fabrication of micro/nanostructured materials and devices of novel surface properties, such as adhesive/non-adhesive and wetting/non-wetting surfaces.

My PhD research at University of Waterloo (ON, Canada) was focused on design, fabrication, and characterization of synthetic bio-inspired dry adhesives. By fabricating the first fibrillar dry adhesive from flouropolymers and studying the interfacial interactions of both natural and synthetic dry adhesives, I showed that a large factor behind the phenomenon of dry adhesion derives from electrostatic interactions generated via surface charging. This discovery represented a major digression from long-accepted theories, leading to a significant shift in the fundamental understanding of the phenomenon of dry adhesion and also in the design concepts and directions for fabrication of new synthetic dry adhesives.

During my postdoctoral training at Yale University (CT, USA), I designed and developed a state-of-the-art particulate contamination cleaning method using triboelectrically-chargeable micro-scale fibrillar structures made from an elastic and non-sticky polymer. With various implications in microelectronics, aerospace, optics, xerography, and adhesive bonding, polymeric fibrillar materials can offer a new paradigm for thorough yet nondestructive cleaning of micrometric and sub-micrometric contaminant particles from solid surfaces.

Building on these pursuits, I intend to develop a research program based on integration of objectively new and innovative designs in fabrication and modification of micro/nanoarchitectured materials of novel surface properties.