During the academic year, Fall09 - Spring10, Dr. Kim,
the facility director ,designed, built and tested devices for a number of MRSEC
and outside users.
A simple
computational model demonstrates the assembly of self-limited filamentous
bundles. The images are taken from dynamic Monte Carlo simulations in which "chiral"
subunits ( with a preference to form twisted arrays of one "handedness")
spontaneously assemble under different interaction strengths and degrees of chirality.
Stabilized
emulsions containing the oscillating Belousov - Zhabotinsky chemical reaction (BZ) show interesting dynamics. Each drop acts as an independent chemical clock.
However, they chemically communicate and exhibit collective behavior. In (a)
six BZ drops are contained in a
capillary tube. The white bars
are light, which set the oscillators in the reduced state. Drops 1 & 6 are
always exposed to light, setting the boundary conditions. Drops 3 & 4 are
Since its development in China thousands of years ago, silk from
silkworms, spiders and other insects has been used for high-end, luxury
fabrics as well as for parachutes and medical sutures. Now, MRSEC
supported researchers are untangling some of its most closely guarded
secrets, and explaining why silk is so strong, a question that has
remained unresolved. Buehler and co-workers of the MIT MRSEC IRG-II have
We have made the first experimental observation of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in neutral excitons. In classical mechanics the motion of an electrical charged particle is only affected if the particle enters a region of space with a magnetic or electric field.
Expanding outreach with portable SEM for K-12 math/science. Last year MRSEC graduate students at the University of Arkansas brought cutting edge microscopy to local middle-school students and allow them to explore the world of nanoscience in real-time. This year our focus expanded to regional high-school students. The microscope is a portable scanning electron microscope (SEM). The SEM allows the students to explore the world of the “nano”.