The Soft Matter Characterization Core Laboratory is a sub-core of the CHANL Core Facilities dedicated to delivering reliable sample analysis and professional training services on the characterization of soft materials and providing customers open access to state-of-the-art, high performance analytical instrumentation.
Location:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Caudill Building, Rm 12
Lab Hours:
Monday – Friday
Staffed: 9am – 5pm
OneCard Access: 24/7
SM Core Highlights
Customer Research Highlights | SMCL News | Upcoming Events | And many more…
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(#MS1) MALDI-TOF MS: A Superior Technique to GPC for Molecular Weight Determination of Synthetic Polymers
INTRODUCTION Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC) has been a standard for molecular weight determination of synthetic polymers for decades, but the technique has some notable limitations and challenges. Matrix-assisted time of flight laser desorption mass spectrometry (MALDI-ToF MS) has emerged as a very powerful technique that not only addresses most of the limitations of GPC, but…
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8th International Soft Matter Conference 2024
July 30 – August 2, Raleigh NC The 8th International Soft Matter Conference will be held in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA from July 30 – August 2 at the Raleigh Convention Center. The conference is the soft matter community’s signature event and features speakers from the leading edge of the field. Topics will include colloidal…
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UNC Soft Matter Characterization Core Lab
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is happy to announce the opening of our new Soft Matter Characterization Core Lab (UNC-SMCL) in March 2024, a sub-core under the CHANL core facilities to be located in the ground floor of the Caudill building, Room 012. The lab will operate similarly to other UNC core…
Other Chemistry Department Core Facilities
The UNC Chemistry Department houses several core laboratories that similarly offer open access to various instrumentation that can be utilized for soft matter characterization. Additional services are also available at each of the core labs which are led by experienced scientists who are highly skilled in training and are experts in their field.
Another core laboratory that may be of interest is UNC’s Nanomedicines Characterization Core Facility (NCore) where you can find comparable and complementary capabilities to the SM Core Lab. A complete listing of UNC core laboratories can be found in the UNC School of Medicine website.
CHANL
Make Nano – Measure Nano
- Microscopy – Scanning and transmission electron microscopy, atomic force, nano indentation, optical
- Fabrication – Lithography, thin-film deposition, ion beam milling, deep reactive ion etching
- Spectroscopy – Fourier transform, X-ray diffraction, microspectrophotometry, ellipsometry
MSCL
Mass Spectrometry Core Lab
- Polymer average masses Mn and Mw
- Absolute MW determination of repeating units (monomers)
- Sum mass of the polymer end-groups
NMR Core
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
- Monomer structure confirmation
- Branching determination
- Co-polymer composition
- Observation of tacticity
XCL
X-ray Crystallography
- Determination of degree of crystallinity in polymers
- Polymer microstructure determination (crystallite size)
- Determination of crystalline orientation
Acknowledgement
This work was performed in part at the Chapel Hill Analytical and Nanofabrication Laboratory, CHANL, a member of the North Carolina Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network, RTNN, which is supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant ECCS-2025064, as part of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, NNCI.
NSF Acknowledgement Statement:
CHANL receives support from NSF through the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, NNCI, program. If you publish a paper that includes data acquired or structures fabricated in CHANL, please include the following in the acknowledgement section of your paper. Once your paper is published, please send it to Vivian Lin, so that we can also add it to CHANL’s list of publications. Thank you!