Penner Group Outreach Program
To view the Flash gallery, please ensure the following:
You have the Adobe Flash plugin installed.
Get the latest version here.
Your browser supports cascading style sheets (CSS).
Any ad-blocking software you are using is disabled.
Image List:
Image 1: Santa Ana High School student Ervin Meneses, a summer intern in Reginald Penner's chemistry lab at UCI, meticulously readies a slide to produce gold nanowires.
Image 2: Upon his arrival at the lab, Ervin dons a lab coat. Goggles and purple gloves are also part of his work attire.
Image 3: With help from his mentor, grad student Jung Yun Kim (left), Ervin attempts to get the necessary computer software started to track his work.
Image 4: Ervin readies a slide for growing gold nanowires by coating it with a solution and zapping it with ultraviolet light. The room has yellow lighting because the color doesn't interfere with the ultraviolet treatment.
Image 5: A template for growing nanowires is created on the slide via photolithography.
Image 6: Keenly interested in math and science, Ervin is thrilled to be working in the chemistry lab instead of at Chuck E. Cheese's, his previous job.
Image 7: He uses a blowtorch to clean a platinum foil counter electrode.
Image 8: Ervin removes the slide from a beaker containing a gold solution, while a computer monitor displays the results of his work.
Image 9: The slide is rinsed before vacuum-baking, a process that takes a few hours. Ervin will then examine the glass wafer under a microscope to see if a nanowire is growing.
Image 10: Ervin eyes one of his successful creations under a microscope.
Image 11: Magnified 1,000 times, a gold nanowire can be seen connecting two nickel plates. It's the thin horizontal line in the middle of the lens.
Image 12: "I'm focused on my golden life ahead," says Ervin. He hopes to study math and chemistry at a major university, thanks to his summer internship.
Read feature:
Going for gold
© 2013 UC Regents
