Nano at UK!

Hello! It's very since to see you back here again with another post about what has been happening so far this week! 

On Tuesday our class had the opportunity to go to the University of Kentucky's Advance Science and Technology Commercialization Center (ASTeCC Lab)! This lab and program allows for the University of Kentucky to do research and for different discoveries to be made and then possibly be put into the market. ASTeCC is a way for engineers and scientists with different back grounds to come together and possibly discover collaborative research of intellectual and commercial value. 

During our visit at UK we were able to visit 4 different rooms and spend about 20 minutes in each of them, but I was not able to go into all of the different devices what we were able to see.

Photonics 

We were able to learn about photonics and using a passive wavelength to test different photonic chips. I was able to learn about the amazing things that go into photons! Electronic data is stored digitally as 0's and 1's on memory chips, but electronics has been bottlenecked because of how far different advantages can be made in the field. You are really not able to go any smaller than the size of an atom. Photonics can create things that goes faster! Photonics has the possibility of becoming more than just binary and then allowing more bandwidth, as well as more information to be transmitted. The ability of combining electrons and photonics will be able to open the possibility for a large amount of research to be conducted and for things to become much faster! 

A photonic device is used with optic cables that transfer data signals in the form of light and can travel much faster than electrical cables! The device uses photodetectors to detect the light transmitted, but not only fiber optic cables to guide the light waves. This device took 2 whole years to set up by making sure that the angle of the wire in the different 6 axes where correct, which included roll, pitch, and yaw. 

It was very interesting for me to learn about the different uses that photonics could have in healthcare! The chips that are being designed to be like neural networks. The chips could be able to help diagnose, test, and treat patients.

Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)

The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) allows us to see the properties of matter at the atomic scale. This AFM has a scanning area of 10 microns by 10 microns! A laser that uses the deflection of a silicon-tipped cantilever. measures the area as it passes the surface of the sample. This information is sent to the computer where the software makes a topographical image of whatever the sample is. The tip used is very sharp and it can be very easily dulled due to the size of it! AFM is also very slow with a single digit hertz. 

We learned that different vibrations will ruin the experiment so you need the bungee cords and a soundproof foam to allow for the highest resolution and most accurate image to me measured. This device can be used to analyze where an issue might be occurring with a mass produced microchip. 

AFMs can be and are used in medical research. You are able to see what is happening on the surface of a cell. Researchers will us AFM as well as optical force microscopy to study different cells. This dev ice can also be used to stretch a protein's membrane and measure the force and distance. 

Personal Highlights

I learned a lot, but honestly I was very confused during a lot of it! It was very nice to have the opportunity to go home and research more about everything and also talk about everything the day after. 

One of the most interesting things from this visit was being able to go into the "clean room!" We were required to put on a Tyvek suit, gloves, booties, and a mask to be able to see the different devices in this room. A clean room is a specific room where the number of particles in the air, temperature, and humidity are controlled. I understand why it is so important to for the researchers to be in these conditions when working with things this small! Different things like even a speck of dust can block the field of view and ruin what they are working with. Controlling the environment helps to reduce that risk! In the clean room we were able to watch our school logo being printed on the nanometer scale right in front of us!

It was very interesting to see how each of the researchers were to be able to tell us about what they have been doing in the lab and talk more about the devices they are using. They were able to relate their work back to biology and healthcare, which helped me better understand what all they are doing. This was very helpful since a majority of us our going into healthcare or a healthcare related field. 

This field trip gave our class a great chance to see nanotechnology that I would never have the chance to see before! 

In my next blog post I will cover our second day at the ASTeCC lab!