Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Dedicated to micro- and nano-technology fabrication, the Georgetown Advanced Electronics Lab (GAEL) is where miniaturization that was once only imagined, becomes a reality.

Located on the first floor of Reiss Science building, GAEL is home to extremely sophisticated and powerful (though deceptively small) keys to our scientific future.

“At GAEL we invent and perform unique solid state technology to build devices that measure biological systems and condensed matter at the atomic and molecular scale,” explains Dr. John Currie, director of GAEL. There is a special focus on products applicable to health sciences in the work that goes on at the lab, and Dr. Currie has “optimized its [the lab’s] design for the materials and geometries required by biomedical and health applications.”

State-of-the-art equipment at GAEL features furnaces that can heat up to an intense 1200 C, enabling electron-beam evaporation of metals; a special furnace designed to foster carbon nanotube growth; UV exposure tools for micron-scale photolithography; plasma-etching systems; atomic and molecular surface characterization systems employing X-ray and Auger photoelectrons; and the latest acquisition, a field emission scanning electron microscope.

“Thanks to the dedication and skill of Paul Goldey, GAEL’s Technologist,” relates Dr. Currie, “the facility is kept fully functional and can be made available to a wide variety of students and researchers with diverse expertise and training.”

During a given academic semester, there are several faculty and postdoctoral fellows, five or so graduate students, and 3-4 undergraduates sharing the different resources available at GAEL.

Among others, Doctors Currie, Paranjape (associate director of GAEL), and Ed Van Keuren all have current research projects that require the use of GAEL equipment.

Currie and Paranjape are developing a versatile, miniature biosensor called the B-FIT device; Paranjape and Van Keuren are involved in nanotechnology and microfluidics projects with biomedical applications; and Dr. Van Keuren and his graduate student Kristen Bloschock are busy developing a miniaturized protein separation device.

Funding for GAEL initially came from Georgetown University, and continues from extramural funding sources including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Whitaker Foundation.

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