Facilities

The FNL consists of a 1452 sq. ft. space. The main laboratory is 484 sq. ft. housing general chemical preparation facilities, including mobile benchtop workstations, UV oven, fume hood, sink, centrifuges, vacuum oven, furnace, water baths and dynamic light scattering instrumentation (Zetasizer, Malvern Instruments). The biomaterials preparation is housed in a separate, 242 sq. ft. room housing a laminar flow hood with Level 2 biosafety cabinet, Olympus inverted microscope, ultrasonic cell disrupter, auto mated cell counter, microplate reader with absorption, fluorescence and luminescence readout modes (BioteK) and a refrigerator and incubator. A separate lab houses optical characterization facilities in a space of 484 sq. ft. This facility houses a 6 ft. by 4ft. and 4 ft by4 ft vibration isolated optical tables and bread boards for optical studies using lasers (Optical Parametric Oscillator (Ekspla, NT342B) tunable laser from 400-2600nm, Diode Lasers (980 nm, 785 nm and 670 nm) and optical spectrometers (Horiba Jobin-Yvon and Ocean Optics). Additionally a Leica DM/LA optical microscope with CCD camera.

Our lab houses an optical parametric oscillator pumped by a 20 Hz Nd:YAG Q-switched with a 5.9 nanosecond pulse. Currently this laser is used for experiments including:

OPO Laser (EKSPLA NT342B)

 

Our lab includes a 4 port spectrometer which allows us to perform both absorption, transmission, reflection and fluorescence experiments with the same instrument. The absorption path is equipped with a Xenon lamp and sample compartment which allows us to perform absorption, transmission, reflection experiments. The fluorescence path is used in conjunction various lasers is equipped with a water TE-cooled PMT.  

 iHR320 Imaging Spectrometer (Horiba Jobin Yvon)

We use Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) to characterize the synthesized nanoparticle size (0.3 nm to 10 microns). Additionally, we can acquire molecular weight of polymers and proteins and zeta potential measurements of nanoparticles. 

Zetasizer Nano ZS (Malvern Instruments)

Our biological preparation facilities includes an automated cell counter and a microplate reader with absorption, fluorescence, luminescence readout modalities. 

                                       

Countess II Automated Cell Counter                                            Biotek Microplate Reader

Other Equipment and Facilities:

Accessible User Facilities

Kleberg Advanced Microscopy Center:

AFM - Innova

AFM - Multimode

Hitachi STEM-5500

Hitachi SEM1510

JEOL 1230 TEM

JEOL 2010-F

JEOL ARM 200F

Raman Spectroscopy

X-ray diffraction

Zeiss 510 Confocal

Zeiss 710 Live Cell