Samantha Downey: Eliminating Surface Adhesion Between Biomolecules and Silicon

Under the guidance of the Applied Optics Group and Professor Holger Schmidt, Samantha Downey investigated the properties of bio-molecules, specifically how the bound to silicon waveguide channels in optical single molecule detectors or even how they bound to each other. Using pH to determine the amount of adhesion in different environments, pH values were sought that would greatly reduce or even eliminate adhesion of these molecules.

The main research being done in the Applied Optics Group is single particle optics. The goal is to produce highly sensitive methods to study single particles with optical methods.

The second area is to use these and other established methods to gain a better understanding of these particles and light-matter interactions. The current focus on particles involves single biomolecules, single nanomagnets and single photons. The group is affiliated with the California Institiute for Quantitative Biomedical Research, the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, and the Storage Systems Research Center.