TOPIC：Xray compatible microfluidics for in-situ bio/chemical studies at synchrotron sources
SPEAKER：Dr. Tuncay Alan, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Laboratory for Micro Systems, Monash University, Australia
TIME：December 13 (Tuesday)15:00 pm
LOCATION：Room 518, Chemistry Building A (化学A楼518会议室)
INVITER：苏远海 特别研究员 

X-ray compatible microfluidics for in-situ bio/chemical studies at synchrotron sources

Tuncay Alan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Laboratory for Micro Systems, Monash University, Australia

tuncay.alan@monash.edu

I will present X-ray compatible microfluidic platforms for bio/molecular analysis and in-situ crystallisation studies at synchrotron light sources. The use of microfluidics enables higher quality data sets of time-dependent reactions to be observed using synchrotron radiation. This has significant implications in a variety of research fields such as synthesis of nanoparticles, protein structure determination and formation of geological sediments and biomineralisation. The devices consist of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic channels bonded to silicon based chips containing ultrathin, X-ray transparent, observation windows (free standing 100-nm-thick silicon nitride, SiN, membranes shown in Fig. 1). The windows allow the incident X-rays to penetrate the channel and interact with the samples contained within aqueous droplets, essentially reaction chambers, which are carried in an immiscible oil phase. Similarly, when employed in X-ray fluorescence absorption spectroscopy (XAS) mode the same windows allow fluorescent photons to be transmitted back to a silicon drift detector. By analysis of only the photons originating from the droplets, the fluorescence spectrum of the contents can be derived to obtain spectroscopy of chemical compounds of interest. I will also present ongoing work on a new microfluidic transmission cell for protein crystallography and discuss preliminary results.

Short biography

Tuncay Alan received his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University in 2007. He then worked as a researcher at Delft Institute of Microsystems and Nanoelectronics (DIMES) in the Netherlands and London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) in UK prior to joining Monash in 2010. His research focuses on microelectromechanical systems, microfluidics, nanofabrication and experimental nanomechanics.