play-doh

1. Electromagnetic enhancements in surface-enhanced Raman scatteringMariah S. Hahn, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, DMR 0955259 Researchers continuously develop new materials for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for sensing appli-cations. Knowing one material is a bit better—on average--does not provide the fundamental knowledge needed for further improvements. The ultimate achievable electromagnetic enhance-ment is also not known. Estimates ranged from 109-1015. We developed a photochemical hole-burning method to measure the full distribution of enhance-ments and recently used our method to compare, at 790 nm, SERS materials from our lab and from Prof. Van Duyne at Northwestern. The largest observed enhancement, 6.3 x 1010, was twenty times the average. The better perfor-mance of the Northwestern material comes from a structured metal layer that reduces the concentration of poorly enhanced sites.

2. Illinois Science Olympiad and Woman’s Chemistry Committee Mariah S. Hahn, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, DMR 0955259 white LED Dlott organized an “Experimen-tal Design” event for the Illinois Science Olympiad (ISO) for middle-school and high-school students. Given the items in the photo, students were tasked with measuring the wavelength of the laser beam and determining what colors were absorbed by the colored squares. Dlott’s students Kathryn Brown and Elizabeth Friedman, mem-bers of the Woman’s Chemistry Committee, organized a Chem-istry day camp for middle-school girls. laser play-doh 500 l/mm grating index cards rhodamine square green, red, blue and cyan, yellow and magenta color squares Experimental design kit for middle school students. The cost per student team was about $5.50. Students were tasked with using the diffraction grating to measure the laser wavelength and to determine what primary colors (RGB) the color squares (rhodamine, CMK) absorb.