RM's+Week+of+December+10

RM's Logbook


 * Monday, December 10, 2007**

Today, I worked on reformatting my milestone report. I changed the statements to commands, and I started putting them up on a webpage. I created links for some of the pages, also. I added and deleted a few milestones as I was changing the statements and commands. Lastly, I updated my logbook.


 * Tuesday, December 11, 2007**

I will be going into the lab today, and apparently AL will make a different solution with enzymes, which appears to be a laborious undertaking. I will probably observe this, and then add the procedure to another milestone that I wish to accomplish in the future. I also updated my logbook and will continue to work on the milestone report.

At ND, we took some images of DNA on mica - they turned out really well - it's probably due to the fact that the AFM had already been on for a while, so the images turned out quite smoothly. Perhaps on Thursday, we'll image a sample prepared in the way the AL explained on yesterday's entry. Dr. Sarveswaran also went into more detail what the goal of the project is - it makes even more sense to me. I'll explain it in tomorrow's entry.


 * Wednesday, December 12, 2007**

I continued working on my milestone report, but first here's what I learned yesterday regarding the goal of our project:

The purpose is for smaller electronics, and in particular, for smaller circuit boards. We are using silicon because it's a semi-conductor, which is a necessary property for modifying the board, as is later explained. So, first, a polymer is spread on the silicon, in order that the pattern for the circuit board can be etched into it (the pattern cannot be etched into the surface of silicon). This is done using electro-beam lithography, which must be used on a semi-conductor to work. Assume that this pattern consists of rectangles spaced every 3-4 nanometers. Thus, at each of these spaces, a rectangle is etched into the polymer surface and the area of polymer within the rectangle is removed. Thus, there are bare, rectangular silicon areas visible across the surface of the sample. Next, the APTES is applied to the bare silicon areas. After that, the rest of the polymer is destroyed from the surface using an organic solvent. Now, the DNA rectangles, used as scaffolding, are placed on the bare silicon surface that has APTES deposited in specific places. The APTES attracts the DNA, so that the DNA accumulates where the pattern has been implanted. Now, nanoparticles can be attached to the DNA scaffolding in order to transmit signals, etc. From there, you can custom your circuit board.

So, if we're able to get the DNA to relax on the silicon surface, it can be used to pattern these boards. At the present time, whenever the DNA is deposited on the surface, it is fixed to its position and will not relax. Thus, if it falls in coils, it will remain coiled instead of being flat. On mica, however (and this is why we get wonderful images), the DNA relaxes. However, mica, because of its physical properties, isn't feasible for electronics.


 * Thursday, December 13, 2007**

I thought I was going to ND today- apparently, I'm not, and will not for the next week and a half due to finals. So, as a result, I worked on my milestone report.


 * Friday, December 14, 2007**

Again, I'm working on my milestone report. Our report is due next Friday.

Week of December 3

Week of December 17