Prior to my qualifying exam about a month ago, I put together a simple model of transport (detailed in this previous post) across a nanomembrane that incorporated electrostatics as well as terms describing both convective and diffusive transport across the…

Below are various SEMs of  NPN membranes.  (All samples were coated with metal by using the Denton Ag sputterer for 120 s)  These were used samples that have been sitting out in the lab for weeks.  I don’t remember the exact…

For a while now I’ve been working on developing and testing the practicality of using nanoporous membranes as filters for highly sensitive assays. Traditional filter-based assays are restricted in their speed by both the time it takes for a particle…

Bob and I are trying to determine which wet etch would be appropriate to use to remove the native oxide inside the pores before membrane liftoff. The issue is when removing the native oxide, we will remove part of the…

On May 13, Jim McGrath and I are hosting Vincent Tabard-Cossa from the University of Ottawa. We will be interacting with Vincent as a sort of NRG mini-retreat day. See the information below. Vincent’s U Ottawa Page Home Visit Agenda…

We were targeting a TEOS layer of 300 nm for the SiO2 membrane. The wafers were patterned with ø3 µm pores using S1813 resist (~1.5 µm thick). The target etch time in the Drytek RIE is 4 min 10 s…

This is just an update for the experiments Tejas and I have been working on for the past two weeks: First, we tried incorporating 20 μl of Geltrex (10 mg/ml, diluted with DMEM from stock concentration: i.e. 15.6 mg/ml) in the…

Bob and I have been busy for the last couple of weeks going through the fabrication process with the hopes of SiO2 membrane liftoff. The fabrication process was similar to the silicon nitride membrane liftoff. The process is shown in…

While serving on an NSF MRI (Major Research Instrumentation program) review panel today the director shared his analysis of funding probabilities as a function of score. The analysis was only done for the Directorate of Math and Physical Sciences, but…

For the past month, I have been working along with Tejas towards incorporating an ECM-like hydrogel into the back (edged side) of a pnc-Si chip. The purpose of this effort is to add another layer of complexity to Tejas’ in…