Facilities

The Garcia Center operates as a "laboratory without walls." As in the past, graduate, undergraduate, and high school students will have unrestricted access to all listed facilities. Post-docs at each campus will continue to oversee operation of the more complex instruments. Mini-courses will be introduced to familiarize students with the principles as well as the practical aspects of key instrumentation. In addition, videoconferencing and internet technology will be employed to allow remote access to major instruments, beginning with the TOF-SIMS at Queens College. Outside grants will defray a substantial portion of the maintenance costs. The listed national facilities are directly accessible to the PIs through existing collaborations and agreements.

• Polymer Thin Film Laboratory
  Extensive surface imaging facilities include a Digital Nanoscope III AFM, and a Topometrix thermo-SPM. Associated capabilities include a liquid cell, external lateral force modulation, temperature control, and humidity control. Additional facilities include a Nicolet Magna-IR 760 E.S.P. optical bench spectrometer, a Mettler Toledo DSC 821 with vacuum cooling and heating, an Atomika 3000-30 SIMS, a temperature controlled contact angle goniometer, a Rudolph Ellipsometer, a Nicolet FTIR, a 1500X Olympus Nomarski microscope, photoresist spinners, vacuum ovens, and a KSV Langmuir trough.
• Electron Microscopy Laboratory
   A Philips CM12 STEM is equipped with a high brightness (LaB6) electron gun, energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer, and parallel electron energy loss spectrometer, TV recording, and LN cooled and straining stages. Additional facilities include a Philips EM301 TEM, and an ISI-SX30 SEM with an energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer, a Robinson backscatter detector, and a Reichert Ultramicrotome.
• Light and X-ray Scattering Laboratories
  Facilities for diode, He-Ne, and argon ion lasers as sources. Sample chambers cover a range of temperatures (up to 400 C) and pressures (up to 6000 psi), and detection schemes include photon correlation, Fabry-Perot interferometry and Raman spectroscopy, as well as intensified CCD area detectors. DNA capillary electrophoresis instruments with laser induced fluorescence detection and video microscopy are employed. Additional facilities include a Perkin-Elmer DSC 7 station, a Rheometrics RSA-SL with x-ray modifications, an Instron 1440 testing machine, a dual-cell temperature jump apparatus, and a thermal optical system with a polarized microscope.
• Computational Facility
  With the addition of two theorists to the MRSEC faculty, a 16-node parallel processing machine will be set up jointly by D. Gersappe of Stony Brook and Y. Shnidman of Polytechnic, to allow simulations of large system sizes and long time steps. This system will be remotely accessible, and use by all students and faculty will be encouraged. User friendly software for simulation of polymer kinetics and rheology will be developed during the grant.
• Imaging of Polymers in Liquids

  We have one major instrument - a confocal microscope - to serve all participants. The confocal microscope can be used to produce video images of DNA chains on chemically patterned surfaces in the electrophoresis experiments. The chain dynamics can be compared to computer simulations of the effect of surface friction on chain mobility. We will design a temperature controlled stage to follow spinodal decomposition in polymer blends labeled with fluorescent probes. This will allow studies of the kinetics of surface mobility and phase transitions as a function of filler type, surface interaction, and constraint. A Leica Spectral TCS SP system has the requisite sensitivity and spatial resolution for these studies.

  We  have access to a unique "sensing mode" atomic force microscope located at LifeAFM, Inc., just a few minutes from the Stony Book campus (see letter from P. Hugh). This AFM, invented at Brookhaven National Labs, induces far less damage to sensitive specimens, and is capable of revealing, for example, the helical periodicity of DNA molecules. The instrument has strong potential for studies of "soft" or "sticky" molecules in buffer solution.