We had four independent study* students this past summer. Students met weekly in the boardroom to troubleshoot and perfect their plans for world domination. Three of the projects provided new materials for our embedded systems course while helping out with our research, and one was a more classic research project where we needed a computer simulation done. …
Category Archives: Lab News
It’s been an epic summer for U-Haul
July and August of 2014 saw many changes in the neighborhood. -We are now sharing a lab with Dr. Stuart J. Williams from Mechanical Engineering! He has moved on up (literally upstairs) and seems very excited about finally having a fume hood. We have previously been on committees together, sometimes attend the same conferences, and he taught …
Painting with nanoplates
We recently developed a microfluidic method for patterning light-absorbing nanomaterials on MEMS (microelectromechanical systems). The technique relies on a chemical bond between the surface and nanoplates from the O’Toole group, plus microfluidic channels to control where the nanoplates go. Figures (a) through (d) are electron microscope images at various size scales, and figure (e) shows an optical …
Progress toward a light-driven bistable microactuator
Trying out a new poster-hosting site, so here is a somewhat recent one from our latest graduate. Tom Lucas’ poster won the “best poster” award at the 2013 KIEC conference!
Calculate your spin speed for SU-8 photoresist
Dragging an ancient, stained cleanroom notebook around (NO DRINKING COFFEE IN THE LAB!) or constantly digging up the MicroChem SU-8 datasheets to calculate your SU-8 spin speed? Check out our SU-8 Spin Calc. SU-8 is a thick photoresist often used for making molds for microfluidic devices. Since the photoresist is part of the final structure, …
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