A working life
General
SNEEK-PEEK INTO NTNU NANOLAB
Mar 26th
Well, Easter is just around the corner and work pase slows down a bit. Therefore I thought I’d make a post about the NTNU Nanolab.
What is it?
The Nanolab is NTNU’s state-of-the-art cleanroom, and also my main laboratory during my thesis project. My project is multi-diciplinary, so I spend time in different labs for each part of the work. At the Nanolab, I fabricate the devices I’m using to perform electrical characterization of single nanowires.
Below, I’ve tried to show you a bit of the Nanolab and explain what you see. Enlarge images by clicking them.
More text below the picture.
When entering the Nanolab, one start in the end of the corridor and work your way towards where this picture is taken.
Ready for action in the ISO5&6 areas (click to enlarge)
The procedure for getting dressed starts even before the dressing corridor. First, you must put on a hairnet and some dark flip-flops. Then, starting in the corridor, you switch to another pair of flip-flops – these are white.
Then you take on the hood, the body suit and then you put on the “booties” outside the white flipflops. Almost done, all that remains is your mouth cover and your gloves.
It’s time to enter the lab.
The Nanolab consists of an area for chemical methods and a cleanroom for physical methods (which this sneek-peek is about).
The physical lab is made out of a main corridor (seen in below image) and five arms containing different equipment. The first two arms are of clean room level ISO7, while the three inner arms are of the cleaner ISO 5 and ISO6 (about cleanroom classifications).
Main corridor of the physical methods area
The aim of my thesis project is to characterize semiconductor nanowires. To do this I need to make metal contacts onto the nanowires. A nanowire is typically 2-4 micrometre and 50-100 nanometre in diameter. Making such contacts is done using two machines:
I might explain the manchines in a later postm later, but lots of time is spent next to these two machines. Additionally, we use photolithography machine, resist spinners and of course the work benches. The machines can be seen below.
Light is yellow’ish because of the light sensitive chemicals used in this cleanroom area.
I will try to explain my thesis project in more detail in a later post. Happy easter to you all!
The fourth arm in the physical methods area. This is where I spend my time in the Nanolab. The light is yellow because of the photolithography machine where we use material that are light sensitive.
A photomontage of some chemicals, resist spinners and the border between two very clean environments
NTNUI VOLLEYBALL WEEKEND
Mar 14th
Dinner time at Stykket (Photo: Nina M. F. Langlo)
I’ve had a great weekend doing mostly volleyball related things. It all started out with the annual NTNUI cabin trip:
This year the trip went to “Stykket”, a boyscout cabin in Bymarka, about 25 minutes of skiing from Lian tram station. There, about 20 of NTNUI Volleyball’s finest gathered to have a blast, playing cards, snow volleyball and eating “pølse og brød”.
The snow was falling thick on Friday afternoon and evening, and even more snowfall joined Saturday, perfect! I had a great (but a bit fast-pased) skiing trip with Nina, Rune and Ole before we locked up Stykket and headed back to civilization; and the second scheduled volleyball event:
Saturday afternoon, H2B were match officials in the ladies’ premier division match in Rostenhallen. Despite being pretty dead tired after the cabin trip, everything went ok, without too many glitches. Unfortunately, the NTNUI ladies lost.
Sunday, two of the three last league matches for H2B were played in Åsheimhallen. To make it as painless as possible, I’ll just say we lost both matches and returned home to enjoy the beautiful snowy weather and the rest of the weekend, completely volleyball free!
WHAT IS THIS? FOR ME?
Mar 8th
MY RADIONETTE MENUETT
Mar 7th
I would like to share with you my latest project. Nothing much, but it looks good and works fine. This post is the story of my Radionette Menuett HTPC.
History
The idea for this project started a couple of years ago, in 2007 I think. It started with some inspiration, an old Radionette radio at my grandmother’s that I have always found very pretty. I didn’t want to take my grandmother’s radio, so I found a similar one online. I ended up buying a beautiful 1951 Menuett radio from Radionette (Norwegian Wikipedia). I wanted to make it into a HTPC, something that could be a livingroom furniture and a computer. The radio I bought didn’t work, so I cleaned out the inside ending up with a nice future HTPC case.
Then the project stopped. I had lots to do and the whole project went to a halt for about two years. Fall 2009 however I restarted it.
Specifications
Since I wanted a HTPC and the fact the HDTV is becoming more and more normal, I wanted a machine that could play Full HD material. At the same time I wanted to keep the computer as cheap as possible, and simple to build. I chose a Zotac ION motherboard that includes NVidias PureVideo™ HD Blu-Ray/HD DVD acceleration and HDMI output. The CPU, a Intel ATOM N230, and 12VDC power supply was included with the motherboard.
| What | Product |
|---|---|
| Case | Radionette Menuett 1951 radio |
| Motherboard | Zotac ION N230 (Mini-ITX) |
| CPU | Single Core Intel Atom N230 (included with motherboard) |
| Memory | 2x 2GB Crucial BallistiX (DDR2 PC6400) |
| Harddrives | 2x Western Digital 160GB (SATA) |
| PSU | 90W 12VDC (included with motherboard) |
Building process
The building of this project was very simple. First step was to remove all excess electronics from the old radio. Then I cut a hole in the side of the radio to fit the motherboard backside. The motherboard was then mounted on a metal plate, separated with spacers. The plate was then screwed to the case.
ON/OFF and RESET pins were soldered to one of the front panel buttons. Additionally I used the 12VDC harddrive output with a voltage regulator I made to power two light bulbs, lighting up the old tuner. And that’s about it. Keeping it simple.
Software
I installed the latest version of Ubuntu (9.10) and Boxee, a free media center software. Two problems were encountered. The first problem was overscan, thus that the outer parts of the output was not visible on the TV. This was solved by a setting on the Samsung TV. The second problem was that I had no sound through the HDMI cable. This was easily solved by unmuting the HDMI sound output in Ubuntu (alsamixer). Both of these problems were quickly solved by Andreas.
Conclusion
So, to sum up. My Radionette Menuett works perfectly, it plays full HD movies and is great for surfing. But the best thing, it looks great in the livingroom! Click the images to enlarge them.
Long exposure image showing the lit tuner
Motherboard connectors
Type and 1951 prize
Seen from the back
The backcover removed
Radio originates from Fjellhamar
On/Off and Reset
MORNING HUMOUR
Feb 22nd
I just came across this one on the interweb, through a good friend of mine, Claire. It originates from xkcd.com. I find it a little funny, being an electrical engineer and all:
