Durham University's EPSRC Core Equipment Award 2020

为了改善达勒姆的研究基础设施，将购买以下四项设备：i)激光扫描共聚焦显微镜；最先进的共聚焦显微镜能够以大约100纳米的空间分辨率记录三维图像样本。它们在生命科学中被广泛使用，但在物理科学中不太常见。这里需要的显微镜将主要用于检查“软物质”，如脂质和聚合物膜、囊泡、3D凝胶配方、细胞封装等。ii)原子力显微镜(AFM)的荧光补充；原子力显微镜使用非常接近样品表面的探针以纳米分辨率成像。然而，视野有限，在较大区域内的成像可能会很慢，而且很难在样本中找到您的确切位置。将传统的荧光显微镜添加到AFM中，使用户能够同时观察纳米级和微米级正在发生的事情，从而更好地了解正在发生的物理和化学过程。这里的研究将集中在跨膜传输上，以帮助提供对细胞内发生的一些非常基本的过程的物理理解。iii)手套盒和蒸发器；许多电子设备的未来方向是通过使用“可打印设备”。在这里，电子设备中的材料可以是基于流体的和打印的，但其中许多材料，在设备被密封之前，可能会受到水蒸气和氧气的影响。因此，设备需要在所要求的手套盒提供的无水和无氧环境中制备。电触点也需要在受控环境中蒸发到此类设备上，这项设备使这一过程能够在如此清洁、干燥和缺乏氧气的环境中进行。iv)可调谐二极管激光器；需要具有非常精确控制波长的激光器来捕获微小的原子或分子云。通过非常仔细地控制波长，就有可能降低原子的运动和能态。然后，这些准备好的原子形成了广泛的物理实验的起点，这些实验为量子技术的进步奠定了基础，也为具有一系列物理性质的非常灵敏的探测器提供了可能性。

In order to improve the research infrastructure within Durham four items of equipment will be purchased, as follows:i) Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope; A state of the art confocal microscope enables three dimensional images samples to be recorded with spatial resolutions to around 100nm. They are widely used within the life sciences but less common in the physical sciences. The microscope requested here will primarily be used for the examination of "soft matter" such as lipid and polymeric membranes, vesicles, 3D gel formulations, encapsulation of cells, etc.ii) Fluorescent addition to an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM); An atomic force microscope uses a probe very close to the surface of the sample to image with nanometer resolution. However, the field of view is limited and the imaging over a larger area can be slow and it can also be difficult to find your exact position within the sample. The addition of conventional fluorescence microscopy to an AFM enables the user to observe what is happening at both the nano-meter and micron scale simultaneously, obtaining significantly greater understanding of the physical and chemical processes taking place. The research here is going to be focused on transport across membranes to help provide a physical understanding of some very basic processes that take place within cells.iii) Glovebox and evaporator; A future direction for many electronic devices is through the use of "printable devices". Here the materials in the electronics can be fluid based and printed but many of these materials, until the device is sealed, can be affected by water vapour and oxygen. Thus, the devices need to be prepared in a water and oxygen free environment as provided by the requested glovebox. Electrical contacts need to be evaporated onto such devices also in a controlled environment and this item of equipment enables this to take place in such a clean, dry and oxygen deprived setting.iv) Tunable Diode Lasers; Lasers with a very precisely controlled wavelength are required to trap small clouds of atoms or molecules. By controlling the wavelength very carefully it is possible to reduce the movement and energy states of the atoms. These prepared atoms then form the starting point for a wide range of physics experiments which for the basis of advances in quantum technology and also provide the potential for very sensitive detectors of a range of physical properties.