Physics education research, electronic materials, and the musings of Christopher Moore, Ph.D.
Jul 3rd, 2011
It took an entire bag of Sweet Sixteens and a full day of stirring, filtering, and baking. However, it appears that we have been successful in our first attempt at extracting TiO2 nanoparticles from powdered sugar doughnuts.
Jan 1st, 2011
Powdered doughnuts are good for you! At least, if you’re interested in solar power. Yes, even you can build your own solar cell using powdered doughnuts and tea leaves.
Jul 9th, 2008
Last semester I had a student working with me on building a sputter deposition chamber. We spent a lot of time waiting for parts, but we did manage to get some very necessary pieces together. Andy and I designed and fabricated a collar system for supporting the weight of the rather large 6-way cross we [...]
Jan 11th, 2007
The battle between Sony and Toshiba is still raging. Last year during the International Consumer Electronics Show Sony unveiled Blu-Ray, while Toshiba launched HD DVD. Both formats are fighting to become the next generation of DVD technology, with the loser becoming this decade’s BetaMax. If you are old enough to remember, Sony’s BetaMax flopped hard [...]
Sep 13th, 2005
Solid state physicists are contributing to the battle against terrorism. And unfortunately for pseudoscientist “new paradigm” theory hawkers, quantum physics has another application. In this article, PhysOrg.com discusses newly developed Avalanche Photodiodes (APDs) and their application in the war on bio-terror. Once optimized, these sensitive detectors could be combined with the ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) [...]