Poster Presentation by Anna Bose and Samantha Dibben
Samantha Dibben: First-Year Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering
Anna Bose: Sophomore, Chemistry
Mentor: Joseph Samaniuk, Chemical and Biological Engineering
Abstract:
Organic membranes perform complex functions that derive from changes in membrane structure. Synthesizing organic membranes with the addition of inorganic particles has become a recent widespread scientific interest. The interactions of membranes with different particles can be directly applied to various fields such as materials science, medicine, chemistry, environmental engineering, and even drug delivery.
When observing these interactions, the Brewster angle is utilized. The Brewster angle is an angle of incidence where a specific polarized light transmits through a surface, usually a dielectric, with absolutely no reflection. At an air-water interface, the Brewster angle is 53°. However, different angles are needed for oil-water interfaces which are worth investigating and part of the motivation for this project.
Important structure changes in membranes happen at multiple length scales simultaneously which presents the challenge of visualizing these membrane structures. Currently, most research utilizes a Brewster Angle Microscope (BAM) which uses the Brewster angle to aid in collecting images of a given interface. However, these microscopes are too large, too expensive, and restricted to the air-water interface angle. This work focused on building a functional BAM out of LEGO bricks that mitigate these challenges. The main factors that went into building the BAM include the weight of the microscope components, the size of the microscope, and the capacities of the LEGOs available to use. We built and tested a fully functional BAM for general laboratory use and attempted to image the surfactant DDPC at an air-water interface.