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Assistant Professor and NanoCenter member Oded Rabin expressed his appreciation at the recent opening of the new Materials and Interface Nanotechnology Laboratory. Joined by members of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP), the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) faculty and students celebrated the long-awaited opening of the new facility.
Initial research projects at the lab will include investigations of the synthesis of metal nano-particles for applications in surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, and on the growth of nanowires for applications in thermoelectric materials.
The lab, located in the IREAP building, was constructed in a former storage area. This afforded Rabin and his team the opportunity to design the facility from the ground up. "It was a very interesting challenge to learn about all the considerations that are involved in designing a lab, to communicate with contractors and project managers, to create a vision of the desired result, and to anticipate what may go wrong," Rabin explains. "Bryan Quinn [Director of Technical Operations, Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)] assisted us throughout the process and helped us solve problems and prevent costly errors. Bryan, Joe Kselman [Engineering Technician, ECE] and Tom Norberg [Technical Operations Specialist, ECE] will continue assisting us with the smaller jobs that still need to be done to fit the lab for new tasks."
During the extensive remodeling and the ordering and installation of equipment, Rabin and his research group worked in a shared IREAP lab, shared research facilities including the FabLab and NISPLab, and the labs of several MSE and other faculty members.
"Thanks to the generous assistance of [Professors] John Cumings, Sang Bok Lee (Chemistry and Biochemistry), Gary Rubloff, Ichiro Takeuchi, and Manfred Wuttig, we had access to space and equipment we needed during that period," says Rabin. "I'd also like to thank [MSE Professor and Chair] Robert M. Briber, [Director of IREAP and Professor of Physics and Geology] Dan Lathrop, and [former Clark School dean] Nariman Farvadin for allocating the resources and making the support of new assistant professors a high priority."
December 3, 2008
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