Cross-Continental Cross-Linking- Hannah Christina Aspinwell

My polymer samples curing under ultraviolet light. 

Aren’t they pretty!

I’m fully in research mode now and it’s going well. To recap: my research project focuses on developing a polymer composition for 3D printing microfluidics by UV-lights. Advancements in digital light processing and two photon polymerization are making it easier to make many, high resolution, devices quickly. If we want these devices to function as microfluidic ones then we need to strike the correct balance in polymer-resin composition to ensure they have suitable properties. Among other things, we want the product to be hydrophilic enough for passive flow, strong enough to not break, and transparent so we can see what’s going on in there!

To achieve this, I am varying the concentration of photoinitiator and several polymers as well as the curing time. When exposed to UV-light, the photoinitiator begins a radial reaction that links the polymers together forming a new substance that needs to be characterized. It’s a lot like baking and, if I’m honest, the UV-curing station looks a lot like an oven.

Me preparing to contact angle measurements.

My day typically consists of planning, data analysis, and meetings in the morning and then experiments in the afternoon. So far fabrication issues have made contact angle measurements difficult but the Raman spectra revealing extend of curing looks promising! Hopefully, next week I will move to testing mechanical properties and incorporating a second polymer for crosslinking.

Working king at imec continues to be rewarding. The 

people are pleasant and there’s been no shortage of opportunities to socialize with them. The fluidics team held a BBQ where Tom and I got to swap homemade dishes with our coworkers. Also, a sweet American couple invited all the IRES interns to their home. We all appreciated their tips on living in Belgium and delicious caprese salad. Imec held a summer festival for the company with plenty of free food and people dancing in lab-safe shoes.

Outside of work, I’ve been traveling! Sharada and I went to Amsterdam with Kirby and we ran into Tom at the Paris catacombs. It’s fascinating to see how different the culture and language changes over the short distance between the two cities. Amsterdam was energetic and charming. I highly recommend the Van Gogh Museum. In Paris we saw Musee d'Orsay’s fantastic impressionist art and Sainte-Chapelle, which is breathtakingly beautiful, in addition to the catacombs and elegant city.

Kirby, Sharada, and I stranded at a rest stop when our bus to Amsterdam had to stop for 45 minutes after a traffic delay. 

It’s still difficult to parse how much of each experience here is European culture, imec’s culture, or engineering culture in industry. From what I can tell: unrefrigerated milk and eggs are European, having fries in the “health” section is an imec thing, and nobody knowing where the good lab tweezers are? Well that’s just science in general. Nice to know somethings never change.