[BNC-all] BNC E-news for the week of March 30th

[Anthrop, Heather L]

Cleanroom Cleanliness
Electrical Work
Personnel Announcements
Preventive Maintenance Shut Down
Seminar
Workshop

Cleanroom Cleanliness

In our survey responses this week we had a concern about cleanroom and lab cleanliness.  It was noted that we talk about this every year in the all-user meetings, and yet the problem persists.  While we try to provide state-of-the-art facilities and capabilities to everyone we cannot always monitor the cleanroom 24/7.  The cleanliness of our facility largely depends on each individual user to ensure they leave equipment & hoods in good working condition, and clean and ready for the next user.  It is a matter of individual responsibility and accountability.  We have over 400 users within Birck, so if each user would just take a few extra minutes to clean up after using an area then this problem would not exist.  However, we know that we still have problems, so what can we do?

I'm soliciting ideas from the user community.  Here are some thought-starters and possible solutions:


1.       Close the cleanroom at night and on weekends.  This would restrict work to be done only during the daytime and would allow staff to be available and on site during working hours.  This is not an ideal solution as it severely restricts equipment availability.

2.       Have individual users provide peer pressure by speaking to users who violate our cleanliness protocols.  This would support continuing 24/7 operation of the cleanroom, and would address issues on a peer-to-peer basis.

3.       Report violators to management/staff.  If we were to have eye-witnesses report WHO did the violation then we could enforce disciplinary procedures.  This would identify specific violators and impose a penalty on them as a lessons-learned.

4.       ?

5.       ?

6.       ?

We're open to your suggestions.  Please give us your thoughts on how we can improve cleanliness in our world-class facility and ensure that all researchers have the very best, and clean, systems to use:    rreger at purdue.edu<mailto:rreger at purdue.edu>

And as always thanks for your valuable feedback.

Ron

Electrical Work

During our PM shutdown scheduled for week of May 4, 2015 Physical Facilities electrical department will be completing major modification to the isolation grounding system in all general laboratories.  Outlets in the laboratory with a label starting with "S" will be powered down 8 a.m. Monday, May 4 through 4 p.m. Friday, May 9 or until all modification are completed.

Please move any critical tools requiring power during this shut down from the "S" outlets to the outlets starting with "N".

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Personnel Announcements

We are very pleased to announce two new Staff Scientists who are joining us at the Birck Nanotechnology Center:

Dr. Rosa Diaz started Friday, March 20th as the new Electron Microscopy Research Scientist.  Rosa comes to us from the Nanoparticle by Design Unit in the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa Japan.  She earned her PhD in Science and Engineering of Materials from Arizona State University, and has previously served as a post-doc in the Electron Microscopy Group of Brookhaven National Labs.

Dr. Nithin Raghunathan has accepted a position as Research Scientist in micro and nanoscale processing, starting on May 18th.  Nithin is currently a post-doc in the Birck Nanotechnology Center working on RF sensors.  He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Purdue.

Both Rosa and Nithin will report directly to me.  Please join us in welcoming them to the Birck team.

Dimitri Peroulis

Preventive Maintenance Shut Down

he Birck Nanotechnology Center will be undergoing a semi-annual preventive maintenance and service shutdown May 4 through May 8, 2015.  Air handling systems, exhaust systems, hazardous gas delivery, and monitoring systems will be down beginning at 7 a.m. Monday, May 4 through 4 p.m. Friday, May 8.  The BNC staff will be performing appropriate preventive maintenance on the process equipment at this time as well.



All CLEANROOM research work will be suspended until the maintenance activities are completed and all systems are returned to normal.  No one will be allowed to enter the cleanroom during this time period.



In addition, the laboratory areas will also be affected by this systems maintenance.  As such, all LABORATORY activities that involve exhausted hoods, vacuum systems, and/or toxic gas systems will be down beginning 7 a.m. Monday, May 4 through 4 p.m. Friday, May 8.  No chemical work will be allowed during this period.



At the same time Physical Facilities electrical department will be completing major modification to the isolation grounding system in all general laboratories.  Outlets in the laboratory with a label starting with "S" will be powered down 8 a.m. Monday, May 4 through 4 p.m. Friday, May 8.

It is anticipated that the building and most process tool maintenance will be completed by the end of the day on Friday, May 9.  Please check Coral for equipment status and availability.



Thank you for your cooperation and understanding during these important preventive maintenance shutdowns.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact Mark Voorhis.

Seminar

Jeff C.H. Ko, DVM,MS, DACVAA

Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine

Biosensors and nanotechnology in modern veterinary and human medicine: research challenges

Monday, March 30th at 10:00 am in Birck 1001

For more information please visit: https://nanohub.org/groups/bnc/calendar/details/1138



Prof. Philip Walther

University of Vienna

Photonic Quantum Cloud Computing and Quantum Simulation

Monday, March 30th at 1:30 pm in Birck 1001

For more information please visit: https://nanohub.org/groups/bnc/calendar/details/1147

Prof. Sankaran Mahadevan
Vanderbilt University
Uncertainty Quantification in Reliability Prediction of Aging Systems
Thursday, April 2nd at 11:00 am in Birck 1001
For more information please visit: https://nanohub.org/groups/bnc/calendar/details/1145

Workshop

"The nanoBIO Node of NCN is holding a workshop on Nanoindentation and Its Applications in Mechanotransduction and Characterization of Soft Materials. The workshop will take place on April 1st and 2nd, 2015 at the Micro Nano Technology Laboratory (Urbana, IL). For registration, please go to https://nanohub.org/groups/nanobio/nanoindentationworkshop "

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