ANZ Micro- and Nanofluidics Symposium 2012 (Wellington, NZ)

CLEANROOM CLOSURE – SUNDAY, February 19th 2012

Cleanroom users are warned not to plan work this Sunday, nor to leave computers or equipment on for Sunday. See notice below for more details.

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Dear Colleagues

Please note this Sunday  (February 19th, 2012) there will be a complete power shut down for approximately three hours in Building 301 for mandatory compliance testing and calibration of the metering current transformers, and load testing.

For this reason the School is enforcing a total closure for the period 9am through to 1pm.

No-one is permitted to enter the building during this time.

Before you leave on Friday/ Saturday please ensure all electrical equipment and computers are shut down, preferably switching off plugs at the wall.

Vern Rule (and to be confirmed buddy) will access the building once the power is back on and restart fume cupboards and other necessary equipment. Beca is unable to be here to do the testing on the fume cupboards in Labs 609 and 709. However, Vern can report to Beca on what has failed to start. Only then can a decision be made whether Beca will still need to do an independent test.

Ron Bryant has been working with users of the critical equipment affected by power cuts. However if you have any concerns please contact Ron or Vern.

This will be sent to students; however please do ensure that all your own students are aware of the total closure.

Thanks

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3rd Australia & New Zealand Micro/Nanofluidics and Bionano Symposium

Dear Colleagues,

Abstract submission is now open for the 3rd Australia & New Zealand Micro/Nanofluidics and Bionano Symposium

Please visit the website: www.confer.co.nz/anznmf

*** 12-13 April 2012 at Rutherford House, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand ***

The format and scope will be similar to last year’s ANZ Micro/Nanofluidics meeting held in Sydney, with the invitation extended to the MacDiarmid Institute’s Bionanonetwork (BNN).

Please circulate this notice to interested colleagues. Anyone wanting to be added to (or removed from) the email list for this meeting can reply to g.willmott@irl.cri.nz

Best regards,

Geoff Willmott(on behalf of the Local Committee)

2011 PERC / HP Symposium

The 7th PERC Symposium / 2nd Hybrid Polymers Symposium will be held on December 5-6 at the University of Auckland. For information about the Symposium please contact Jadranka Travas-Sejdic or Paul Kilmartin.

1 June 2011

12 midday – 1pm – please note time change

Venue: 70 Symonds St, Level 2, Room 439-201

Host: Dr Richard Clarke

Contact email: rj.clarke@auckland.ac.nz

Speaker
Professor John Sader
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Melbourne, Australia

Abstract
Nanomechanical sensors are often used to measure environmental changes with extreme sensitivity. Controlling the effects of surfaces and fluid dissipation presents significant challenges to achieving the ultimate sensitivity in these devices. Particularly, the fluid-structure interaction of resonating microcantilevers in fluid has been widely studied and is a cornerstone in nanomechanical sensor development. In this talk, I will give an overview of work being undertaken in our group dedicated to exploring the underlying physical processes in these systems. This will include exploration of recent developments that focus on cantilever sensors with embedded microfluidic fluid channels and examination of the effects of surface stress on the resonant properties of cantilever sensors.

[1] M. J. Lachut and J. E. Sader, “Effect of surface stress on the stiffness of cantilever plates”, Physical Review Letters, 99, 206102 (2007).
[2] M. J. Lachut and J. E. Sader, “Effect of surface stress on the stiffness of cantilever plates: Influence of cantilever geometry”, Applied Physics Letters, 95, 193505 (2009).
[3] T. P. Burg, J. E. Sader and S. R. Manalis, “Nonmonotonic energy dissipation in microfluidic resonators”, Physical Review Letters, 102, 228103 (2009).
[4] J. E. Sader, T. P. Burg and S. R. Manalis, “Energy dissipation in microfluidic beam resonators”, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 650, 215-250 (2010).

Biog raphy
John E Sader is Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne, Australia. He leads an interdisciplinary theoretical group studying a range of topics including the dynamic response of nanoparticles under femtosecond laser excitation, mechanics of nanoelectromechanical devices, high Reynolds number flow of thin films and rarefied gas dynamics in nanoscale systems. http://www.ampc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/srg