MCN is looking for interns
The MCN and ANFF Victoria are currently seeking interns to be partnered with industry clients to work on 2-6 month internship projects.
The Industry Engagement Program is aimed at Masters or PhD students that are interested in gaining invaluable experience working with ground-breaking businesses in sectors that rely on micro and nanofabrication.
This paid internship scheme will see successful candidates working predominantly within MCN to gain training and conduct research on behalf of their industry partner.
Successful interns will work closely with an employer to drive an industrially relevant project; receive training in a cleanroom facility from expert engineers; and interact with key personnel within the affiliated company in a research capacity – offering enormous potential for long-term job opportunities.
Click this link for more information.
MCN is seeking a new Process Engineer
We are currently seeking a new Process Engineer to join the MCN team!
The successful applicant will integrate highly technical laboratory skills with the ability to monitor, support, adapt and implement operational practices while providing support to strategic MCN projects through scientific design and the recommendation and implementation of best practice laboratory initiatives.
The new Process Engineer will be required to develop and implement a teaching and training program to support novice and advanced instrument users, as well as develop and implement laboratory workflows, procedures, technologies and practices for assigned instrumentation and associated working environments.
Proven expertise and applied experience in nanofabrication, micro/nano characterisation, and demonstrated experience and practical skills in plasma processing (reactive ion etching (RIE) / thin-film deposition will be instrumental to the success in this role. These technical skills coupled with your demonstrated knowledge of quality management and improvement systems such as LEAN operating principles or ISO9001 will equip you to succeed in this role.
View the role description here.
Vic Gov announces $50,000 vouchers
The Victorian State Government has launched an Advanced Manufacturing Voucher Stream that provides eligible applicants with an additional $50,000 to develop new products and add capabilities.
The vouchers are designed to help Victorian manufacturers innovate, build scale and grow export capability. Up to $50,000 is available to each applicant through the scheme on a dollar-for-dollar cost matching basis.
The eligible projects must be “growth-oriented” activities such as the development and commercialisation of new products and/or advanced manufacturing processes.
MCN was designed for these sorts of projects and has years of experience in assisting businesses with the development of new products and processes through its expert engineers and ground-breaking nanofabrication capabilities.
As all IP that results from work conducted at the ISO 9001 certified facility belongs with the user, it’s an ideal environment to carry out the development stage of innovative projects.
For more information on the Voucher Scheme please head to this website: http://www.business.vic.gov.au/support-for-your-business/grants-and-assistance/Boost-Your-Business/Advanced-Manufacturing-Voucher-Stream
If you would like to harness the Voucher Scheme using MCN capabilities please contact mcn-enquiries@nanomelbourne.com.
Grant Participation Policy announced
MCN has announced a new Grant Participation Policy that offers additional in-kind support for grants that propose the use of MCN infrastructure.
In-kind support is available in the form of top-ups to pre-paid project funds that are linked to activities from successful grants.
Eligible grants will contain proposed work that will at least in part be conducted at the MCN facility. The work should be feasible within the bounds of current capabilities, and the MCN itself should be listed, where possible, as an in-kind contributor on the grant.
The full details of the policy can be found in the MCN Research Grant Participation Policy. For questions about how you can leverage this new policy in your upcoming grants, please email Dr Hemayet Uddin.
Vote for the 2017 Image of the Year
Stella Aslanoglou and Qianqian Shi
The gold nanocube plasmene sits on top of Si nanowires. This is an image that combines a "soft" plasmene and "hard" Si nanowires. When they meet with each other, both of them maintained their own characteristics: the Si nanowires provide supporting while the ultra-thin plasmene keeps flat on the tips without any structure collapse and shows a semi-transparent feature.
This image was taken using MCN's FIB-SEM.
Kate Fox and Alastair Stacey
Diamond coated 3D printed titanium cubes, coated using the MCN PCD diamond CVD equipment (credit K Fox and A Stacey). These cubes are part of a submitted article entitled "Polycrystalline Diamond Coating of Additively Manufactured Titanium for Biomedical Applications".
Bowen Zhu
Gold nanowires synthesized on silicon substrates via solution approach at room temperature. They formed a structure resemble a piece of broccoli.
Image taken using MCN's FEI Helios NanoLab 600 Dual Beam.
Sara Ghavamian (Gholam Nejad)
The small round object trapped in between the spikes of the feature resembles a goalkeeper holding a ball under their arm. My surfaces are designed to investigate the antibacterial properties of patterned substrates and are imaged at MCN using NOVA FEG-SEM tool. The original mould was fabricated using photolithography but the visualized surfaces are PDMS (half-way replicated) or OrmoComp (fully replicated).
The ANFF-VIC Image of the Year shortlist has been decided and now it’s time for the winner to be selected.
Click the above images to see larger versions, and cast your votes by retweeting one of these tweets. The image with the most retweets by the deadline of 23 February will win the $200 cash prize.
Get voting!
2017 Image of the Year
MCN and ANFF VIC partner with APR.Intern
MCN and ANFF-VIC are teaming up with APR.Intern to connect industry with Postgraduate students and leading research capabilities through tightly focused research internships.
APR.Intern is a not-for-profit national research internship program building links between industry and universities. Through its many partnerships with research institutes, APR.Intern delivers a cost-effective solution for industry to tackle research challenges.
Through APR.Intern’s many partnerships with research institutes, eligible industry partners can also qualify for a number of rebates and vouchers which could drastically reduce the cost of the program by 50% (or more).
Gain access to one of the largest open-access cleanroom and characterisation environments in the Southern Hemisphere through one of the most trusted internship programs in the country.
View the program flyer by clicking here, or head to aprintern.org.au to find out more about the program, rebates, and vouchers on offer.
Contact internship@nanomelbourne.com with any questions or enquiries.
New Staff Members at MCN
At the start of November, MCN welcomed two new process engineers to the team, John Paul Teodosio and Dr Vahid Reza Adineh.
John Paul (JP) will be primarily responsible for for the Centre’s mask aligners, steppers, spin coaters, and sputtering/ etching equipment. View his profile here.
Vahid has joined MCN’s thin film deposition team and is responsible for the diamond deposition and atomic layer deposition tools as well as Ellipsometry and Dicing equipment. View his profile here.
ANFF-VIC success at Research Showcase
A note from the ANFF-VIC Director:
Thank you to all users and staff that made their way to Sydney for the ANFF and AMMRF 2017 Research Showcase on 22-23 November.
The show was a resounding success for all of ANFF, but I want to highlight the particular achievements of the ANFF Victoria community.
Particular congratulations must go to Stella Aslanoglou from Monash University and Raghuram Dharmavarapu from Swinburne University of Technology on their posters titled Orchestrating cellular processes by engineering silicon nanowire architectures and Flat micro-optical elements for control of axial intensity distribution respectively. Both posters were fantastic displays of thoroughly interesting research, and both were recognised with a $500 prize. You’ll soon be able to see both at MCN soon.
ANFF-VIC staff were recognised for outstanding contributions to the ANFF network through the Frater Awards. Named after ANFF’s first chairman, Dr Robert Frater AO, Frater Awards are a professional development award given to ANFF staff for outstanding achievement. The award funds local or international travel aimed at fostering technical and professional growth.
Of four winners in 2017, two were ANFF-VIC engineers. I’d like to formally congratulate Dr Karyn Jarvis from ANFF-VIC’s Biointerface Engineering Hub at Swinburne, and Dr Abu Sadek based at MCN. Karyn will head to the USA to visit two suppliers of large-scale plasma polymerisation reactors, participate in a short course in advanced ellipsometry data processing and visit Medtronic, a global medical technology company. Abu is also going to America, where he will visit the Berkeley NanoLab and the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility to gain further training on furnace processes and advanced characterisation techniques for doped semiconductors. Both will be presenting their findings on their return, so keep your eyes peeled for dates.
If our Node may share in Karyn and Abu’s success momentarily, this is an amazing feat for our team. It’s a testament to the calibre of people within ANFF-VIC and recognition for our experts is becoming a trend – the 2016 Frater Awards also saw ANFF-VIC take home two certificates, won by Dr Hemayet Uddin and Dr Yang Lim.
There was also a number of users that spoke and presented posters, and all stood out as well-communicated and promising science. The two-day event in Sydney saw 64 scientific talks given in total, with speakers selected by a scientific committee to represent work conducted with ANFF and AMMRF across the country. I’m therefore thrilled to see that at least 15 of these talks were highlighting research carried out at the ANFF-VIC node. A similar proportion of the 50 posters that were on display acknowledged ANFF-VIC facilities, including our poster prize winners.
On a personal note – to have so many early career researchers presenting cutting-edge research was very exciting, there’s no doubt we will be seeing a lot more of those faces in the future.
Thanks again to all that came and made this show such a success for us – I hope to see you all at next year’s event and for ANFF-VIC to excel yet again.
Professor Nico Voelcker
ANFF-VIC Director, MCN Scientific Director.
MCN Industry Engagement Program
The Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN) is now seeking expressions of interest from industry partners and potential interns for participation in the 2018 MCN Industry Engagement Program.
The program provides industry clients with a cost-effective avenue to carry out critical short-term R&D via an intern placed at the MCN.
Key program features:
◦ MCN to cover the cost of internship labour for duration of project;
◦ MCN to provide 50% top-ups on pre-paid project funds (e.g. deposit $10k, MCN adds $5K);
◦ Industry partners retain all IP and outputs from project activity;
◦ Access to a pool of highly capable Bachelors and Masters engineering/physics interns; and
◦ Interns gain project leadership experience and develop skills through direct technical and operational support from both MCN staff and industrial partners.
Interested industry partners should submit an Expressions of Interest form.
Intern applications should be submitted to internship@nanomelbourne.com with a current resume and cover letter outlining the applicant’s subject of interest.
MCN 2017/2018 holiday closure
MCN will be closed to users from 20 December 2017 to 7 January 2018. Access during this period will be granted by special application only.
If you have any questions about the holiday shutdown or would like to apply for access during this period, please contact Paul Spizzirri.
The first MCN General Induction day for 2018 is Monday, 22 January at 10 am. There will be no Dangerous Goods and Waste Training on this day. From February 2018, the inductions will resume the regular schedule.
ANFF National will be closed from Wednesday, 20 December 2017 and reopens on Tuesday, 2 January 2018.
Enjoy the holiday season, see you in 2018!
The MCN Team
