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Highlights

May 17, 2009
Brandeis University

Polymers Under Constraint

Phil Huang, Andy Ward, Zvonimir Dogic, Seth Fraden, Michael Hagan

fd virus is a polymeric virus 1 mm in length and 10 nm in diameter. We bind fluorescently labeled fd to 1 mm diameter polystyrene spheres creating a charged polymer stabilized colloid (hairy bead) and measure the interparticle potential using a double laser trap. We first measure the interaction energy of (a) bare beads and (b) then the hairy beads, seen here in fluorescence microscopy. (c) Electron micrograph of hairy beads. The repulsive energy of hairy beads is large when the beads are close.
May 17, 2009
Brandeis University

MRSEC / SCOPE

David Barett, Olin; Seth Fraden

During the academic year, F08 - S09, Olin undergraduates Sean Calvo, Caitlin Greeley, Stephani Gulbrandsen, and Leif Jentoft designed, built, and tested a flexible automated microscopy platform capable of imaging an area up to 100mm x 100mm with a resolution of 10 microns at 4.8 second per square mm. It reduces the cost of performing microfluidics research and increases the speed by allowing researchers to easily reconfigure and expand the system to their changing needs.
May 17, 2009
Brandeis University

Active Emulsion

Hector Gonzales, Irving Epstein, Seth Fraden, Bing Xu

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) three photos of the same hexagonally packed 100 micron diameter BZ drops are shown 80 seconds apart. White corresponds to the oxidized state; black to reduced. The pattern is explained in (b); first all green drops are in the oxidized state, then all blue drops and finally all red drops.
May 17, 2009
Georgia Institute of Technology

Chemical Modification of Epitaxial Graphene

Elena Bekyarova, Mikhail E Itkis, Palanisamy Ramesh, Robert C Haddon University of California-Riverside Claire Berger, Michael Sprinkle, Walt A de Heer Georgia Institute of Technology

The ability to modify the electronic structure and properties of graphene is an important step towards the large scale fabrication of electronic devices based on graphene technology.
May 17, 2009
New York University

NYU MRSEC E&HR NYAS Outreach

Co-sponsored inaugural Gotham-Metro Condensed Matter Meeting Student-led one-day conference in hard and soft matter physics held at the New York Academy of Sciences Participating institutions: New York University, Columbia University, City College of New York, CUNY Staten Island, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Princeton University, SUNY Stony Brook, and Yale University More than 140 attendees
May 17, 2009
New York University

Making colloidal helices

a collaboration with Prof. J. Bibette at the ESPCI in Paris

Need microscopic swimmers for transport and mixing in micro- and nanofluidic devices.
May 15, 2009
Ohio State University

Nanoscale Depth-Resolved Point Defects at SrTiO3 Growth Surfaces

J. Zhang, D. Doutt, T. Merz, J. Chakhalian, M. Kareev, J. Liu, and L.J. Brillson

Chemically-etched SrTiO3 is widely used as a clean, atomically-smooth template for epitaxical growth of most complex oxides. Since native point defects in these materials are electrically-active and mobile, there is a need to lower their density. Download
May 15, 2009
Ohio State University

Site-Specific Stamping of Graphene

D. Li, W. Windl, N.P. Padture

Graphene (2-D carbon) is being considered for spintronics due to its low spin-orbit coupling. While graphene-based devices are being made one-at-a-time successfully, there is a need for a high-throughput fabrication method.