Texas Tech University 

AFRL ML-RCPP Partner Institution Strengths & Capabilities Survey

Contact Information:

Name: Cui Romo 

Title: Senior Director

Email: ors.awardservices@ttu.edu

Research

1. Please select the research areas in which your institution currently engages.

• Structural Materials

  • Sang-Wook Bae; Civil, Environmental & Construction Engineering (CECE), sangwook.bae@ttu.edu

  • Yanzhang Ma; Mechanical Eng., y.ma@ttu.edu

• Support for Operations

  • Bryan Norman; Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering (IMSE), bryan.norman@ttu.edu

  • Timothy Matis; IMSE, timothy.matis@ttu.edu

• Radio frequency sensing

  • Changzhi Li; Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), changzhi.li@ttu.edu

  • Donald Lie; ECE, donald.lie@ttu.edu

  • James Dickens; ECE, james.dickens@ttu.edu, Center for Pulsed Power & Power Electronics 

  • Andreas Neuber; ECE, andreas.neuber@ttu.edu, Center for Pulsed Power & Power Electronics 

• Aerospace Vehicles

  • Dy Le; Dy.D.Le@ttu.edu, Institute for Materials, Manufacturing and Sustainment

  • Victor Maldonado; Mechanical Engineering (ME), victor.maldonado@ttu.edu

• Bio effects

  •  Juyang Huang; (Biophysics) Physics and Astronomy, juyang.huang@ttu.edu

  • Suman Chowdhury; IMSE. suman.chowdhury@ttu.edu

• Functional materials & applications

  • Weilong Cong; IMSE, weilong.cong@ttu.edu

  • Jahan Rasty; ME, jahan.rasty@ttu.edu

• Manufacturing technology 

  • Weilong Cong; IMSE, weilong.cong@ttu.edu

• Electro-optical sensing

  • Hongxing Jiang; hx.jiang@ttu.edu, Center for Nanophotonics

  • Jingyu Lin; jingyu.lin@ttu.edu, Center for Nanophotonics

• Control, power, & thermal management systems

  • Beibei Ren; ME, Beibei.ren@ttu.edu

• Turbine engines

  • Dy Le; Dy.D.Le@ttu.edu, Institute for Materials, Manufacturing and Sustainment

• Training & decision making

  • Changwon Son; IMSE, changwon.son@ttu.edu

2. Please note, in detail, any research areas of strength not listed above. This may include fundamental sciences (e.g., math, physics, biology, etc.).

• Combustion Lab, Michelle Pantoya, michelle.pantoya@ttu.edu

• Wind Engineering – National Wind Institute, John Schroeder, john.schroeder@ttu.edu

• Institute of Genomics for Crop Abiotic Stress Tolerance (IGCAST), Luis Herrera- Estrella, luis.herrera-estrella@ttu.edu

• Global Lab for Energy Asset Management & Manufacturing (GLEAMM), Argenis Bilbao, argenis.bilbao@ttu.edu

3. Are there any emerging areas of research your institution is actively seeking to develop?

• One-Health

• Cybersecurity

4. Does your institution have any internal research centers or participate in any research consortia?

• NSF Engineering Research Center - Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production, Gerri.botte@ttu.edu

• GLEAMM – Global Lab for Energy Asset Management and Manufacturing, argenis.bilbao@ttu.edu

• Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics, james.dickens@ttu.edu

• Obesity Research Institute, naima.moustaid-moussa@ttu.edu

• Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC), James.Yang@ttu.edu

• DOE Rapid Advancement Process Intensification Deployment “RAPID” Manufacturing Institute, Chauchyun.Chen@ttu.edu

• Vertical Lift Consortium (VLC), Dy.D.Le@ttu.edu

• Naval Surface Technology and Innovation Consortium (NSTIC), Dy.D.Le@ttu.edu

• Maritime Sustainment Technology and Innovation Consortium (MSTIC), Dy.D.Le@ttu.edu

• Texas Hydrogen Alliance (THA), Qingwang.Yuan@ttu.edu

5. Please provide a list of relevant facilities and equipment.

• Whitacre College of Engineering has dedicated computing and data infrastructure for research and education. For example, the CS department has a 40-node, 800-core compute cluster infrastructure supported by the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation program. Additional computing resources are provided by the High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) at Texas Tech. HPCC resources include the RedRaider cluster, with over 50,000 cores, 6.9 petabytes of data storage and approximately 2.2 PFLOPS (1015 floating point of operations per second) of raw peak computing power.

• Advance Manufacturing and Materials Lab:

  • Laser Deposition – Additive Manufacturing Machine (laser engineered net shaping LENS 450)

  • Rotary Ultrasonic Machine

  • Nano-mechanical Testing Machine

  • Two Universal Testers

• Materials Characterization Center:

  • Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)

  • Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)

  • Focused Ion & Electron Beam (FIB-SEM) System

  • Sputter & Carbon Coater

  • Atomic Force Microscopy (MFP-3D-SA AFM)

  • Atomic Force Microscopy (Dimension Icon)

  • Spinning Disk Confocal System

  • Optical (Visible-Light) Microscopy

  • Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy/Infrared (IR) Microscopy

  • Fourier Transform Raman (FT-Raman) Spectroscopy/Fourier Transform Raman (FT-Raman) Microscopy/Dispersive Raman Microscopy/Spectroscopy

  • Microscopy/Spectroscopy

  • UV-Vis-NIR Spectroscopy

  • Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS)

  • X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS)

  • Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS)

  • Transmission Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (TEM-EDS)

  • Focused Ion & Electron Beam System with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (FIB-SEM-EDS)

  • Particle Size Analysis (Zetatrac)

  • Particle Size Analysis (API Aerosizer)

  • Micropore/Mesopore Analysis

  • Zeta Potential Analysis

  • Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA)

  • Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)

  • X-ray Diffractometry (MiniFlex 6G)

  • X-ray Diffractometry (SmartLab 3kW XE)

  • Vacuum Oven

  • Ovens

  • Furnaces

  • Centrifuge

  • HF-Resistant Hood

  • Biosafety BSL2 Hood

• Nanophotonics Center:

  • Commercial III-nitride Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition reactors

  • NSOM

  • AFM; High resolution AFM

  • SEM and e-beam lithography

  • X-ray mapping

  • X-ray diffraction

  • High-resolution XRD

  • Sprectroscopic ellipsometer

  • STS Multiplex Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) system or the deposition of high quality dielectric mirrors and passivation layers, etc.

  • Production scale e-beam evaporation system for the deposition of metal contacts as well as dielectric materials

  • Research scale e-beam evaporation system for the deposition of metal contacts as well as dielectric materials

  • SEM (LEO-440) based e-beam lithography system for nano-scale device patterning with a line resolution of about 30 nm (60 nm) for conducting (insulating) substrate 

  • A deep UV photolithography systems for sub-micron device patterning (0.25 micron line resolution)

  • Plasma-Therm Series 790 Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) etching system for dry etching and device pattern transfer 

  • Single-wafer rapid thermal annealing furnace (reaches 1200 C in 5 seconds)

  • Multi-wafer thermal annealing furnace (up to 900 C).

  • High temperature thermal annealing furnace (up to ~1900 C).

  • A laser-lift-off (LLO) system for sapphire substrate removal. A unique feature of our LLO system is that it is able to remove the whole 2” wafers aligning free.

  • Flip-chip bonding system (RD Automation) is used for device packaging and for bump-mounting individual or arrays of devices onto sub-mounts or other driving/read-out circuits.

  • Automated wafer scribe/dicing system (Dynatex).

  • Sapphire wafer lapping/polishing systems.

  • Pulse source meters, LED and laser diode drivers.

  • Probe stations, wire bonders, micromanipulators, optical microscopes with digital cameras for LED and laser diode characterization.

  • Tektronix programmable curve tracer and 45 GHz analog and digital oscilloscopes.

  • Ocean Optics spectrometers for electroluminescent emission characterization for deep UV, UV, and visible emitters.

  • High sensitivity spectrometers for electroluminescent emission characterization of IR emitters.

  • Optical transmission/reflectance spectroscopy measurement setup.

  • Standard AM1.5 solar simulator for determining external efficiencies of various solar cells.

•  GLEAMM and National Wind Institute Resources:

  • Three high-resolution load banks: Two 500 kW and one 500 kVAR programmable load banks with various load profile programming capabilities.

  • Back-up Generators: 570 kVA Diesel generators, a traditional microgrid component with various control options, are available for microgrid integration efforts.

  • DC power supplies: GLEAMM’s DC power capability includes a 150-kW PV, 1600Ah UPS Battery in both existing controls, and reconfigured inverter testing.

  • AC Power supplies: GLEAMM’s DC power capability includes Sandia’s 3x300kVA Wind Turbines and 36 kVA Regenerative 4-Quadrante AC Load for EV testing.

  • 3 Clusters of High-Performance Computing Nodes as critical load

  • OPAL-RT real-time simulation platforms for running power systems and cyber models concurrently with actual hardware at power, in real-time.

•  Combustion Lab:

  • FTIR: Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy - The spectrometer has a spectral range from 15 cm-1 to 28,000 cm-1 from the very far IR, through the mid and the near IR up to the visible and ultraviolet.

  • TEM: Transmission Electron Microscopy - Hitachi H-9500 transmission electron microscope equipped with EDAX energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrometer. Point-to-point resolution of 0.18nm and lattice resolution of 0.1nm. A stable 5- axis eucentric goniometer stage. Field-proven 10-stage accelerator gun design; Compatible specimen holder for use with Hitachi TEM, FIB and STEM systems.

  • SEM: Scanning Electron Microscopy - Hitachi S-4700 field emission scanning electron microscope equipped with EDAX energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrometer. Resolution of 1.5 nm at 15 kV is guaranteed at 12 mm working distance. EDAX SAPPHIRE detector has a 20,000 : 1 peak-to-background ratio, and 128 eV resolution maintained at high throughputs. EDAX Phoenix microanalysis system contains the EDAM III data acquisition module, which allows for flexibility and enhanced performance through Digital Signal Processing for spectral and image acquisition and data reduction.

  • XPS: X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy - Analyzer input lens with 2-3 times higher sensitivity for all analysis conditions. Multi-channel detector for faster elemental and chemical imaging. Angle dependent technology for +/- 5 degree solid angle collection for ADXPS measurements. Hot/cold stage providing temperatures of -140° C to +600° C. Dedicated hot sample platen operating up to 800° C. 4-contact transferable sample mount for in-situ controlled potential experiments. UPS design for increased sensitivity and improved energy resolution. Auger performance providing higher energy resolution and better signal to noise.

6. Does your institution have a relationship with any other academic institution or research organization(s) that enables your access to their facilities and equipment?

• No

7. Has your institution collaborated with the ML-RCP in the past?

• Yes

8. Is your institution involved in any federal STEM funding efforts?

• Yes

9. This program requires documentation (i.e., theses, dissertation, presentations, etc.) to go through the AFRL public affairs review process. Would this present a challenge for your institution?

• No 

Research Administration and Compliance

10. Does your institution have an office of sponsored programs?

• Yes

11. Does your institution have an approval process for seeking extramural funding?

• Yes

12. Does your institution accept federal award dollars and manage standard fiscal reporting, and compliance requirements?

• Yes

13. Does your institution provide guidance to PIs for budget development?

• Yes

14. Does your institution offer proposal development services?

• Yes

15. Does your institution offer research development services, e.g., assistance with finding research funding, proposal management, team formation/development, etc.?

• Yes

16. Does you institution offer research compliance training and education, i.e., roles and responsibilities of principal investigators?

• Yes

17. Does your institution have a designated Export Control Officer?

• No response provided.

18. Is your institution registered with the US State Department Directorate of Defense Trade Controls?

• M15117

19. Does your institution currently perform Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI/ NIST 800-171 compliant) research?

• Yes

20. Does your institution currently perform research subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations?

• Yes

21. Does your institution have a DoD Facility Security Clearance (FCL)?  If Yes:

a.    What is the FCL’s classification level? Secret

b.    What is the FCL’s authorized safeguarding level?  None – TTU is a “non possessing” FCL

c.    How many safeguarding-approved spaces do you manage? None

d.    What is your facility’s CAGE Code(s)? No response available. 7B144 

ML-RCP Program Expectations

22. The objective of the AFRL ML-RCP is to enable and enhance the research capabilities of the HBCU’s/MSIs through collaborative research efforts with AFRL. What would be necessary for you to receive to meet this objective? 

• Visit from AFRL leadership to TTU campus to discuss and develop research opportunities for faculty and students.