Events

• Design of Soft Interfaces through Biomimetic Approach in 4 weeks

  Fri, 07/31/09 03:00PM  Atsushi Takahara, Kyushu University, Japan
  Hosted by Ophelia Tsui.
  

  This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

  Abstract:
  Since surfaces and interfaces of soft materials (“soft interface”) play an important role in various technological applications and biointerfaces, precise control of soft interfaces would greatly promote the innovation of future science and technology. In this study, methods for design of soft interfaces by biomimetic approach such as nano-texturing of polymer thin films, and high-density polymer brush immobilization are presented.

  Nano-imprinting is a promising method for surface nano-texturing. The line pattern was imprinted onto poly(fluoroalkyl acrylate) with long crystalline fluoroalkyl group thin film, and nano-imprinting characteristics of poly(2-pefluorooctylethyl acrylate) (PFA-C8) thin film was investigated. We found out that PFA-C8 could be nano-imprinted even at room temperature because of the weak interaction among fluoroalkyl groups in crystallite at room temperature. The lateral resolution of imprinted pattern was ca.100nm. The nano-textured PFA-C8 with orthogonal line patterns exhibited lotus effect.

  Super hydrophilic polymer brushes were prepared on the silicon wafer by surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of 2-methacryloyloxyehtyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) with phosphocholine group. In the case of PMPC, the swollen brush structure at the water interface was characterized by neutron reflectivity (NR). PMPC brush surface showed super hydrophilicity and the air bubble is hardly attached to the PMPC brush surface in the hydrated state. The salt concentration dependence of the polymer chain conformation was not observed for PMPC brush because of the net charge of PMPC is negligible. On the other hand, poly(3-dimethyl(methacryloxyethyl)ammonium propane sulfonate) (PDMAPS) brush exhibited quite different characteristics. Large dependence of the brush thickness on salt concentration was confirmed by NR and atomic force microscopy (AFM). PDMAPS chains showed shrunk conformation in pure water due to the strong interchain association, while PDMAPS adopted highly extended chain conformation in a 0.5M NaCl solution because salt ions in aqueous solution screen the net attractive electrostatic interaction between PDMAPS chains.

  1. K. Honda, M. Morita, A. Takahara, Soft Matter, 4,1400-1402 (2008).
  2. M. Kobayashi, Y. Terayama, M. Kaido, A. Suzuki, K. Ishihara, A. Takahara, Soft Matter, 3, 740-746(2007).
  3. Y. Matsuda, M. Kobayashi, M. Annaka, K. Ishihara, A. Takahara, Langmuir, 24, 8772-8778 (2008).
  4. S.. Horiuchi, T. Hanada, M. Ebisawa, Y. Matsuda, M. Kobayashi, A. Takahara, ACS Nano, 3, 1297–1304(2009).

• Ling Wang Final Oral Defense in >1 month

  Fri, 08/14/09 11:00AM
  Location: SCI 328
  

  Title:

  Dissertation Committee:

News

• Professor Bill Skocpol has been recognized by the American Physical Society as one among the Outstanding Referees of the Physical Review and Physical Review Letters journals

  April 02, 2009: Professor Bill Skocpol has been recognized by the American Physical Society as one among the 360 Outstanding Referees of the Physical Review and Physical Review Letters journals.

  Initiated in 2008, the Outstanding Referee program expresses appreciation for the essential work that anonymous peer reviewers do for their journals. Each year a small percentage of their 42,000 referees are to be selected and honored with the Outstanding Referee designation. Selections are made based on the number, quality, and timeliness of referee reports as collected in a database over the last 20 years. The program will recognize about 150 referees each year, although larger groups are being selected in 2008 and 2009. A full listing and further details on the program are available on the APS website. You may also view the associated press release as a Word document.

• Professors Chamon and Goldberg elected Fellows of the American Physical Society

  April 01, 2009: Professors Claudio Chamon’s and Bennett Goldberg’s research achievements have been recognized by their election as Fellows of the American Physical Society. The citations read as follows:

  Chamon, Claudio, Boston University
  Citation: For his important theoretical work on the probing of fractional charge and statistics in strongly correlated systems.
  Nominated by: Condensed Matter Physics (DCMP)

  Goldberg, Bennett, Boston University
  Citation: For the development and application of nanoscale optical spectroscopy to semiconductors and biological systems and for the commitment to improving urban education.
  Nominated by: Condensed Matter Physics (DCMP)

• Kipton Barros declared winner of GSNP Student Speaker Award

  March 25, 2009: At the APS meeting in Pittsburgh graduate student Kipton Barros was the winner of the GSNP (Group for Statistical and Nonlinear Physics) Student Speaker Award.

• Professor Smith appointed as member of Panel of Experts advising the Irish Government on science policy

  March 09, 2009: Professor Kevin Smith has been appointed as one of eight members in a Panel of Experts advising the Irish Government on science policy. The Panel will assist the Chief Science Advisor to the Government in the formulation of science related policies and directives.

• D0 announces discovery of new top quark production process

  March 09, 2009: The D0 Collaboration at Fermilab has submitted a paper to Physical Review Letters announcing the discovery of a new production process for the top quark. BU Associate Professor Ulrich Heintz, who co-led the top quark physics analysis group of the D0 Collaboration between 2006 and 2008 and postdoc Shabnam Jabeen have contributed directly to the work that resulted in this discovery.

  The top quark is the most massive elementary particle known. It was discovered at Fermilab in 1995 by the D0 and CDF experiments. The Tevatron collides protons and antiprotons at an energy of 2 TeV, the highest energy particle collisions ever produced in the laboratory. In some of these collisions top quarks are created, most of the time together with their antiparticle, the anti-top quark, through the strong force, the force that holds together the atomic nucleus. Theorists have predicted that sometimes only a top quark or only an antitop quark is created through the weak force, which is responsible for nuclear decay. Scientists at Fermilab have been searching for this so-called single top production mechanism for many years. The D0 Collaboration reached a major milestone in December 2006, when it announced that it had observed evidence for this process, indicating that it had observed some collisions in which top quarks seemed to be produced singly but not quite enough to be certain (see BU faculty and students integral to Fermilab discovery). In the meantime the D0 Experiment has collected more than twice as many data and many more such collisions were found confirming the 2006 result and establishing single production of top quarks beyond any reasonable doubt.

  This discovery is significant because the interaction of the top quark through the weak interaction can only be measured in this process and its measurement may be sensitive to possible new fundamental interactions or elementary particles that have not yet been directly observed. The observation of this process thus creates a whole new laboratory in which the standard model can be tested. The measurement by the D0 Experiment shows that single top quark production occurs at a rate consistent with the prediction of the standard model of particle physics, the theoretical framework that summarizes our understanding of the fundamental particles and their interactions.

  Please also check out the Fermilab press release and related photos and graphics.

• Assistant Professor Anatoli Polkovnikov awarded prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship

  February 17, 2009: The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced today the selection of 118 outstanding early career scientists, mathematicians, and economists as Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows. Physics Assistant Professor Anatoli Polkovnikov was one of the recipients of the prestigious fellowship. Professor Polkovnikov’s research focuses on Quantum Condensed Matter Theory. You may view the complete list of Sloan Fellows at the Sloan Foundation website.

• Professor El-Batanouny selected as Jefferson Science Fellow

  

  February 09, 2009: Our own faculty member, Professor Michael El-Batanouny, was recently awarded as a Jefferson Science Fellow, “established to create opportunities for substantial engagement of tenured scientists and engineers from U.S. academic institutions in the work of the [State] Department.” You can read more about this award at the National Academies website. Please also visit our photo gallery for the event.

• Alex Marin Memorial Site

  January 24, 2006: Please visit our online memorial to Alexander Marin. If you have any materials you would like to share, please send them to Richard Laskey.

Student Spotlight:

Michele Kotiuga travels the world, takes to the rink and still finds time for the lab.

Annual Report:
2007-2008