Today we did two awesome labs. I had heard about ferrofluids only a few months before this class and thought they were really awesome. The thought never crossed my mind that I would ever make the substance and it not really that difficult. The ferrofluid only took about 20 minutes to make. After it was done my group and I began experimenting with it and a magnet. The ferrofluid made many tiny spikes that grew up away from the magnet at the bottom of the pan. The spikes still went up even when the magnet was above the ferrofluid. One time we brought the magnet too close and the ferrofluid began to fly from the pan onto the magnet. After the group admired this, Kim came over and asked us to do it again so that she could video tape it. We did it again but this time far more ferrofluid was attracted to the magnet and we lost almost the entire batch. After we cleaned the magnet off once more. Now the ferrofluid made only a bunch of very tiny spikes similar to the ones before.
The next lab we did was lithography. I picked the triforce to engrave on my piece of copper. It turned out really well comparatively to some other people’s. I didn’t really understand what was going on during the lab because I missed the intro while I was printing my design. I didn’t mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrofluid
http://chemistry.about.com/od/demonstrationsexperiments/ss/liquidmagnet.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanolithography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJGBy_yygaQ
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-nanolithography.htm
