© 2010 University of Waterloo
Frank Gu Research Group
Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
Department of Chemical Engineering

Duration : 0:5:3

(1) Swickrath MJ, Shenoy S, Mann JA, Belcher J, Kovar R, Wnek G, “The Design and Fabrication of Autonomous Polymer-Based Surface Tension-Confined Microfluidic Platforms” Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2007, In Press)

Duration : 0:0:9

At NanoTech 2008, Laser Zentrum Hannover presented a range of micro and submicro structures, created by placing a solid material such as a metal, in a liquid and using short-pulsed lasers to break up the material into nanoparticles.
Interview: “I’m from the laser center in Hannover, which is one of the biggest laser research institutes in the world, and we are focusing on nanotechnology using lasers. We use lasers to ablate materials in a liquid, this sounds strange but its quite easy, so the laser beam transmits the liquid and in the liquid there is a material which we make nanoparticles from. The liquid can be also a monomer. A monomer is a liquid out of which plastics are made. One example is this Nano tail, we call it “Nano On The Beach”. We call it a Nano tail because this contains a tail of nano functions without changing the plastic, so you can use a standard plastic like what mobile phones or toys are made from with a standard procedure and put nanoparticles into this plastic by laser ablation. Then you can mould the plastic, then you have this part, its injection moulded, three dimensional and you can make it with standard technology. To summarize, we have patented a very simple process, in order to bring nano into end products without maing complicated changes to the process chain, we are just changing the raw material by using lasers.”
Embedding nanoparticles into polymer based materials can enhance a range of properties such as hardness, light absorption, biocompatibility, water repulsion, or optical properties.

Duration : 0:2:18