Our new diffusion chamber is finally here. Take a look at the photos first – in our next group meeting you can see the real thing. Today I will test its usability and reliability. Please keep in mind this is only the prototype, there must be upside space for improvement.
I’ve taken fluorescence measurements with the fluorescence microscope on PEGylated and unPEGylated glass coverslips and SiN chips. Six coverslips and six chips were prepared. Samples were treated exactly the same, save for the fact that half the samples had PEG Silane in their treatment and half did not (though they were still bathed in toluene…
As the title states, this post is about shifting an arbitrary pore distribution in an NPN layer. Why would we want to do this? We believe that the underlying pore distribution and shape influences the properties of many of our devices (my SERS sensor work included). Jim has coined the term ‘bowl-with-a-hole’ to describe the…
Here’s the latest news from the production front: We are still struggling with the pinhole issue. Last week, Chris and JP tried a matrix of conditions to try to eliminate the particle contamination. Efforts included using the CO2 snow cleaner and a piranha solution clean. After etching the first wafer which saw only the piranha…
Given the mixed results of discoloration of RTPed samples from W613, which include no discoloration until 7 days (when the experiment was started within 2 hours of RTPing), and discoloration within 2 days (experiment started 8 days after RTP) I ran another discoloration test. This time I started the experiment within an hour of RTP,…
Jim’s post inspired me to think about wetting of nanochannels. We raised this question before – Do we wet the channel in our membrane when water is applied to only one side? My guess was yes because of our success in diffusion and convection when we expose both sides of the membrane to water. The…
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 membrane. It was a useful model, but ultimately limited, as shown by the following image:…
