Here’s a few sketchup animations I made for Dean’s device, based on his PPG presentation last week:      

Poor English Paper used as a starting point: Silicon Nitride Etch Rate paper This is a continuation of the work I’ve done, attempting to make freestanding MgF2 nanomembranes (theory and deposition) using a Silicon Nitride nanoporous substrate. I originally  wanted to…

I am attempting to fabricate a free standing, porous, MgF2 nanomembrane for Raman spectroscopy applications (see my previous post for background). To that end, I’ve used the Lesker p75 evaporator in the basement to deposit ~100nm of MgF2 on one…

Pint Silicon Supercapacitor   Tejas sent me an interesting article about Silicon-based supercapacitors. I have made a previous post on potential uses for our membranes as separators in EDLC (electrical double layer capacitors), and one of the problems I posited…

Wet Etching of Optical Thin Films   As a result of Christian’s trip and Kevin’s discussions with me, I have been wondering if we could make nanoporous MgF2 membranes for Raman spectroscopy. Part of the appeal in using our Si-based…

Sealing Patch Clamp Chips Canadian Patch Clamp Chip   I have been thinking about Handy Geldbard’s group and what would enable them to study groups of synapses. Currently, I am in discussion with Jennetta Hammond and Pat Lu trying to…

AFM images report Protocol: pnc-Si TEM  grids were mounted on thin silicone inserts. Surface treatments were applied to the grids. Except for the CellTak treatment, the treatments were all diluted in Hank’s Balanced Salt Solution (HBSS) and incubated with grids …

I’ve been using a Makerbot 2 for the last week or so, trying to see if we can use the same PDMS contact lithography techniques that we are all familiar with. In short, yes, but there is plenty of work…

Over the last week, I’ve run a discoloration assay similar to one run a while back (Barrett’s post here). It was demonstrated in a subsequent paper (Agrawal2010) that annealing the pnc-Si films prevents discoloration of the membrane, which he tied to…

  I have been looking into PLA (Poly Lactic Acid) plastic for use in our microfluidics. PLA is a commonly used material in 3-d printers, so it would be great if we could print out our microchannels for cell-culture devices.…