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Tony Jun Huang

Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, 2005
UCLA

James Henderson Assistant Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics

212 Earth-Engineering Sciences Building
University Park, PA 16802-6804

Tel: (814) 863-4209
Fax: (814-865-9974
Email: junhuang@psu.edu

Homepage: http://www.esm.psu.edu/huang/

Research Interests

Dr. Huang’s research group is conducting interdisciplinary research in the areas of Molecular Mechanics, Micro/Nano Manufacturing, Biomedical NanoElectroMechanicalSystems (BioNEMS), and Micro/Nano fluidics. His research interest is to 1) understand the physical laws that govern material properties as they scale from molecular to nano to micro to macro, 2) explore hierarchical nanomanufacturing techniques for the generation of micro/nano structures with controllable molecular architectures and functionality, 3) develop micro/nano devices to benefit medical diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

Molecular Mechanics

Artificial molecular machines, capable of converting chemical, electrochemical and photochemical energy into mechanical motion, represent a high-impact, intellectually challenging and growing field of interdisciplinary research. These molecular scale systems utilize a ‘bottom-up’ technology centered upon the design and manipulation of molecular assemblies that are potentially capable of delivering efficient operations at dramatically reduced length scales when compared with traditional micro/macro scale machines.
We aim to understand the physical laws that govern molecules’ properties as they scale from nano to micro to macro; more importantly, we are developing a new class of mechanical, optical, and medical devices utilizing artificial molecular machines as the key “smart materials”. Early success has been achieved in the development of the first artificial-molecular-machine-based mechanical device, as shown in Fig.1 and Fig.2.


Figure 1: (a) Schematic diagram of the proposed mechanism of the device’s operation and (b) the experimental data.	Figure 2: Our work was featured on Applied Physics Letters Nov. 29, 2004 issue.

Micro/Nano Manufacturing

We are developing hierarchical nanomanufacturing techniques for the generation of micro/nano structures with controllable molecular architectures and functionality. Our new manufacturing method will combine top-down approaches with bottom-up techniques for carrying out massively parallel integration of synthetic/natural nanoscale components into higher-order structures. These hybrid fabrication processes will have a broad impact on nanotechnology and lead to the manufacturing of a new generation of complex structures and devices possessing functions that would not be possible with traditional fabrication techniques.

Figure 3: SEM image of a micro/nano polymer fiber array.

Micro/Nano Fluidics

We are investigating the fundamental physicochemical phenomena associated with micro/nano fluidics including interfacial, electrokinetic and colloidal processes. Further, we are applying micro/nano fluidics in a wide range of applications such as biosensing, molecular imaging, drug delivery, chemical reactors.

Figure 4: Optical image of a microchannel.

Bio-NEMS

Another important direction of our research is devoted to the development of micro/nano sensors, actuators, and integrated systems to benefit medical diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. These devices will bridge the interface between modern molecular biology and nanotechnology.
For example, we have invented an electrochemical method for the identification of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), which is the most common type of sequence variation among individual genomes and has been found to play a significant role in human disease. This invention takes advantage of a novel DNA detection probe design, an electrochemical signal amplification method, sensor surface treatment, and a microfluidic sample preparation system. It is inexpensive, easy to use, and most importantly, has high selectivity and sensitivity. Through collaborations with the UCLA Medical School and the House Ear Institute, we have successfully demonstrated this method’s ability to accurately diagnose clinical samples for a wide range of diseases including middle ear infection and Factor-V Leiden disease (Fig. 5).

Figure 5: Testing results with clinical samples showing that our method can detect gene-mutation diseases such as Factor V Leiden.

Representative Publications

Tony Jun Huang, Minghsun Liu, Linda D. Knight, Wayne W. Grody, Jeff F. Miller, Chih-Ming Ho, An Electrochemical Detection Scheme for Identifications of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Using Hairpin-forming Probes, Nucleic Acids Research, Vol. 30, No. 12, e55, pp. 1?6, 2002.

Tony Jun Huang, Yi Liu, Amar H. Flood, Branden Brough, Paul A. Bonvallet, Marko Baller, Sergei Maganov, J. Fraser Stoddart, Chih-Ming Ho, A Nanomechanical Device Based on Linear Molecular Motors, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 85, No. 22, pp. 5391?5393, 2004.

Tony Jun Huang, Hsian-Rong Tseng, Lin Sha, Weixing Lu, Branden Brough, Amar Flood, Bi–Dan Yu, Paul C. Celestre, Jane P. Chang, J. Fraser Stoddart, Chih-Ming Ho, Mechanical Shuttling of Linear Motor-Molecules in Condensed Phases on Solid Substrates, Nano Letters, Vol. 4, No. 11, pp. 2065?2071, 2004.

Yi Liu, Amar H. Flood, Paul A. Bonvallet, Scott A. Vignon, Brian H. Northrop, Hsian-Rong Tseng, Jan O. Jeppesen, Tony J. Huang, Branden Brough, Marco Baller, Sergei Magonov, Santiago D. Solares, William A. Goddard, Chih-Ming Ho, and J. Fraser Stoddart, Linear Artificial Molecular Muscles, Journal of American Chemical Society, Vol. 127, pp. 9745?9759, 2005.

Tony Jun Huang, Amar Hugh Flood, Branden Brough, Yi Liu, Paul A. Bonvallet, Seogshin Kang, Chih-Wei Chu, Tzung-Fang Guo, Weixing Lu, Yang Yang, J. Fraser Stoddart, and Chih-Ming Ho, Understanding and Harnessing Biomimetic Molecular Machines for NEMS Actuation Materials, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, Vol. 3, pp. 254?259, 2006.