Dr. Larry Drummy gives talk at NU

As part of the Frontiers in Nanotechnology Seminar Series, Dr. Larry Drummy (Materials and Manufacturing Directorate-Air Force Research Laboratory) presented on “Tomographic and In-situ characterization of soft matter”

Abstract: 

Nanostructured soft materials are of current interest for a variety of cross-cutting application spaces, as their unique properties and highly processable nature allow for the fabrication of devices with optimized performance. These particular attributes can make materials characterization a difficult task, however, because by their very nature soft materials have a complex three dimensional nanostructure full of dynamic processes and transient structures. This talk will make linkages between the underlying molecular level structure of materials, to the materials and device-level properties that are demonstrated. A particular focus will be on understanding dynamic processes at the nano/molecular scale, from the dielectric breakdown of polymer-grafted nanoparticle assemblies, to the binding of biomolecules on non-biological sensor platforms. Due to the sensitivity of soft materials to damage or alteration from high resolution characterization, method development in low dose techniques and data analytics underpins much of this research. In particular, Model-based Iterative Reconstruction applied to electron tomography has shown dramatic improvements in limiting the applied dose with improved quantitative results.

Sponsored by the Air Force Center of Excellence for Advanced Bioprogrammable Nanomaterials