The Postma group conducts interdisciplinary research in nanoscience and nanotechnology at California State University Northridge in the College of Science and Mathematics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
We are interested in the properties of materials with intrinsic nanoscale dimensions, such as carbon nanotubes, graphene (pictured on the left), nanowires, and DNA (pictured on the right). Their small dimensions give rise to interesting effects, such as quantum confinement, and we utilize these for novel applications in computation, sensing, and information storage.
We use tools such as Atomic Force Microscopy, Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, electrical transport measurements, and nanolithography as our eyes and ears to tell us what happens at these small scales, and as our hands, to change their behavior to realize new devices.
Our main research area is the development of a new single-molecule direct-read DNA sequencing device. We will use the edges of single-atom thick sheets of graphene as sliding electrical contacts to interrogate the conductance of individual DNA bases and from that deduce the base sequence. This work is funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The Postma Lab is located in the basement of Eucalyptus Hall, formerly Science 2. The main laboratory, including the cleanroom, is located in room 2023 and the microscopy laboratory, where we do Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy, is located in room 2026.
Please feel free to drop by for a labtour or take the virtual labtour