December 14, 2016
Professor Benoît Lessard is one of Canada’s most ambitious researchers. His group is located in Canada’s capital at the University of Ottawa. They focus on developing novel polymers to support next generation device technologies like solar, biosensors, and nano-reactors, for a start.
An Angstrom EvoVac designed specifically for Dr. Lessard’s work was recently installed in his lab, and we had a chance to talk to him about it: “We are mostly using this system to make organic electronic devices, such as organic photovoltaic devices, organic light emitting diodes and organic transistor based sensors using carbon based semiconductors. Combinatorial shuttering and in-situ mask change will facilitate the fabrication of several different devices at once, reducing the fabrication time and increasing the productivity in the lab. It will enable the high throughput screening of new molecules, thicknesses and ultimately, device performance.”
He and his group originally chose Angstrom because they “heard through our colleagues that Angstrom Engineering had the best customer service among similar suppliers.” Now that he has the system in his lab up and running, he has confirmed this:
“Customer service is top notch. Our renovations were lagging and Angstrom engineering was extremely helpful. Our chiller was on back order and Angstrom Engineering lent us one of theirs until ours came in. This act alone meant we were up and running 1-2 months faster than if we waited. Other examples include the countless system redesigns and reconfigurations which resulted from the lab being smaller than expected and having to relocate units.”
The design process was something that Dr. Lessard found instrumental in the final system’s success. “Other larger companies want to sell you a package that is predefined and established. Being open and customizable is so important in this constantly changing research landscape.”
To discover more about Dr. Lessard and his group, follow these links. His group website is well designed, simple and informative. He also has a robust Instagram account, where you can see many behind-the-scenes photos of a very active research group. On top of all that, he has a very active Twitter account.
