Reflectin Thin Films II

We refined our methods in a number of ways:

Practice

• Centrifugation of the solutions prior to spin and flow coating to sediment the impurities that caused thickness variations previously. (13000rpm for 10 minutes)
• We introduced liquid CO2 pressure wash to improve cleaning of the silicon substrates
• Trialled spin coating on a glass substrate to allow us to image the way the thin film refracts and transmits light.
• We heat cured the thin films, 10 minutes at 80 or 120 degrees.
• We recorded the reflectance spectra of some of the thin films
• We ran a control using the protein bovine serum albuimin.

Results

The centrifugation appears to have reduced the disruption due to impurities in the coated solution

Reflectin Thin Film made with protein/HFIP solution (not centrifuged

Reflectin Thin Film made with centrifuged protein/HFIP solution

Safety