Substrate fabrication and characterization for photovoltaics and biomaterials applications
Krim, Morgan L
:
2010-04-27
Abstract
A quarter century ago, there began an explosion of research into materials on the nanoscale regime. This progress was made possible with the advance of techniques for production of things with nanoscale dimensions and with the cotemporaneous development of tools to study features with those same dimensions. The pursuit of nanomaterials and tools to design and study them continues to expand; significant branches of this type of research deal with energy and medicine. The work presented in this dissertation contributes to these goals. The materials I studied include the protein complex Photosystem I (PSI), monolayer protected nanoclusters (MPCs) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). These materials were organized on substrates for the conversion of light into energy, the verification of fountain pen techniques, and the study of rapid health testing, respectively. The techniques I used to study these materials were capillary electrophoresis (CE), the atomic force microscope (AFM) and the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). CE was used as an element of the fountain pen I designed for the deposition of MPCs. I have applied the AFM to the study of surfaces of PSI and RSV and confirmed the individual layers in the structure of the PSI protein complexes with individual metal connections, and in the structure of the QCM immunosensor for RSV detection. The QCM showed that the rapid testing of the presence of viruses in human samples is possible in the health clinic setting.