Just a bit of the complexity of the plant works at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication. Taken during a tour for RMIT staff.
The MicroNanophysics Research Laboratory, managed by Professors Friend, Yeo and Dr Peggy Chan, conducts fundamental and applied research in micro to nano fluidics and acoustics, and in exploiting these phenomena for a variety of applications.
We would be happy to hear from you, especially if you are interested in joining us as a post-grad student or post-doctoral staff member with sufficient qualifications. We also are happy to collaborate and entertain visitors from time to time from other institutions and discussions with media and industry in the use of our technology.
Some press for our research work on micromotors for neurosurgery (NeuroGlide®) (video courtesy Channel 7, all rights reserved Channel 7). Channels 9, 10, ABC, SBS, NZ Herald, Sydney Herald and a few others picked up on this. Nice to see the years of effort from our invention come to a little press after all the difficulties we’ve had.
(via jamesfriend)
The appearance of boundary layers and drift flows due to high-frequency surface wavesJournal of Fluid Mechanics, 2012, pp. 1–14: The classical Schlichting boundary layer theory is extended to account for the excitation of generalized surface waves in the frequency and velocity amplitude range commonly used in microfluidics applications, including Rayleigh and Sezawa surface waves and Lamb, flexural and surface-skimming bulk waves. These waves possess longitudinal and transverse displacements of similar magnitude along the boundary, often spatiotemporally out of phase, giving rise to a periodic flow shown to consist of a superposition of classical Schilchting streaming and uniaxial flow that have no net influence on the flow over a long period of time. Correcting the velocity field for weak but significant interial effects results in a non-vanishing steady component, a drift flow, itself sensitive to both the amplitude and phase (prograde or retrograde) of the surface acoustic wave propagating along the boundary. We validate the proposed theory with experimental observations of colloidal pattern assembly in microchannels filled with dilute particle suspensions to show the complexity of the boundary layer, and suggest an asymptotic slip boundary condition for bulk flow in microfluidic applications that are actuated by surface waves. DOI: jfm.2012.293 PDF downloadable here.
Richie Shilton’s going away party at Nachos Cantina: he’s taking a post-doc at NEST in Dr Marco Cecchini’s group in Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy. …(And he’s just become engaged)… Congratulations, Richie!
UV epoxy bonding for enhanced SAW transmission and microscale acoustofluidic integration
Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are appealing as a means to manipulate fluids within lab-on-a-chip systems. However, current acoustofluidic devices almost universally rely on elastomeric materials, especially PDMS, that are inherently ill-suited for conveyance of elastic energy due to their strong attenuation properties. Here, we explore the use of a low-viscosity UV epoxy resin for room temperature bonding of lithium niobate (LiNbO3), the most widely used anisotropic piezoelectric substrate used in the generation of SAWs, to standard micromachined superstrates such as Pyrex and silicon. The bonding methodology is straightforward and allows for reliable production of sub-micron bonds that are capable of enduring the high surface strains and accelerations needed for conveyance of SAWs. Devices prepared with this approach display as much as two orders of magnitude, or 20 dB, improvement in SAW transmission compared to those fabricated using the standard PDMS elastomer. This enhancement enables a broad range of applications in acoustofluidics that are consistent with the low power requirements of portable battery-driven circuits and the development of genuinely portable lab-on-a-chip devices. The method is exemplified in the fabrication of a closed-loop bidirectional SAW pumping concept with applications in micro-scale flow control, and represents the first demonstration of closed channel SAW pumping in a bonded glass/LiNbO3 device. Publication here.
(via jamesfriend)
"Multi-degree-of-freedom ultrasonic micromotor for guidewire and catheter navigation: The NeuroGlide actuator,” published in Applied Physics Letters 100, 164101 (2012), has been selected for the April 30, 2012 issue of Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology. The Virtual Journal, which is published by the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society in cooperation with numerous other societies and publishers, is an edited compilation of links to articles from participating publishers, covering a focused area of frontier research."
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(via jamesfriend)
Acoustic Microfluidics in The Economist
Acoustic Microfluidics is described by the Economist magazine in which we are provided a little bit of press within.
Multi-degree-of-freedom ultrasonic micromotor for guidewire and catheter navigation: The NeuroGlide actuator
A 240-µm diameter ultrasonic micromotor is presented as a potential solution for an especially difficult task in minimally invasive neurosurgery, navigating a guidewire to an injury in the neurovasculature as the first step of surgery. The peak no-load angular velocity and maximum torque were 600 rad/s and 1.6 nN-m, respectively, and we obtained rotation about all three axes. By using a burst drive scheme, open-loop position and speed control were achieved. The construction method and control scheme proposed in this study remove most of the current limitations in minimally invasive, catheter-based actuation, enabling minimally invasive vascular surgery concepts to be pursued for a broad variety of applications. Paper is here. Video is here. (APL published this as their cover article for 12 April 2012. http://link.aip.org/link/doi/10.1063/1.3702579 )
(via jamesfriend)
