The facility houses equipment such as glove box, fume hoods, oxygen-free nanopure water system and ultrasonic processors. Schlenk-type techniques are routinely used for carrying out air & moisture
sensitive reactions. It provides opportunities for synthesis of nanoparticles, core-shell nanoparticles, metal-polymer nanocomposites and their characterization.
Apart from having well equipped wet chemical laboratory Nano Fabrication Facility utilizes DCM beamline, where X-ray absorption spectroscoy of nanoparticles is carried out. X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure as well X-ray Absorption Fine Structure spectroscopic analysis of nanoparticles are routines carried out even for air and moisture sensitive samples. We also have facilities to monitor chemical reactions in situ using XANES analysis.
The facility also has access to instruments in the clean room . The instrumentation facilities well established by the LSU Macromolecular Studies Group and materials characterization center are also being utilized. These include dynamic light scattering, pattern fluorescence photobleaching recovery, analytical ultracentrifugation, a complete set of thermal analysis, rheology, XPS, XRD and various forms of microscopy such as SEM, TEM. SAXS is under development at CAMD and once ready would play an important role in the development of stable colloidal nanoparticles. SQUID magnetometer at Southern University and LSU Physics is used for generating magnetic data on magnetic nanoparticles.
The facility has access to synchrotron radiation-based FT-IR spectroscopy (Nexus 670 FT-IR spectrometer ) and is currently being utilized investigate the mechanistic aspects of nanoparticle formation during wet-chemical synthesis.
A computer controlled integrated polymeric micro reactor system that can be utilized for the synthesis of nanoparticles and in general for chemical synthesis is also available. This user-friendly system consists of three basic functional blocks for controlled flow from the chemical container (Inlet), a custom made, temperature controlled micro reactor stack, and an outlet control unit to optimize all critical reaction parameters.
An alternating electromagnetic field set-up, with the ability to change frequencies ranging from 20 to 2000 Hz and a magnetic induction of 1200 Oe, is available to develop polymer-magnetic nanoparticle composites as vehicles in drug delivery.
With continued focus on process and product development of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPION) and LHRH-SPIONs as novel contrast agents in MRI of tumors, we have recently acquired Brinkmann Titrando system as a tool for size-controlled synthesis of SPIONs.
Nano fabrication facility, through its collaboration with cancer researchers from Pennington Bio Medical Research Center(http://www.pbrc.edu/), has access to cell culture and animal laboratories where in vitro and in vivo assays are carried out. This collaboration is being strengthened to explore bio-medical applications nanoparticles.
