Quartz crystal thickness monitor for vacuum deposition

I describe how using an oscillating quartz crystal can be used to monitor the thickness of deposited coating in a vacuum chamber.

Supercritical CO2 extraction of cinnamon, coffee, and vanilla with dry ice

I built a small extraction chamber for processing materials with supercritical CO2.

Please refer to my previous videos for more information about supercritical co2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gCTKteN5Y4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvmM6qa2a90

PDF discussing vanilla extraction with SC CO2:
http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/482/48221175004.pdf

Making patterned mirrors and ITO glass with a thermal evaporator

I've put enough work into my thermal evaporator project so that I can actually start using it to create thin films. For my first test, I make some aluminum mirrors on glass, and also coated glass with ITO (Indium Tin Oxide). The mirrors look nice, but the ITO was not conductive -- more research required.

Photomicrography (microphotography, macro), focus stacking

In this video, I show my setup for taking focus-stacked images with microscope objectives. I use a Lumix GH1, which is a micro 4/3 format camera, and a custom adapter that lets me interface the camera to a microscope body or directly to a microscope objective.

Video-rate focus stacking with a liquid lens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOyXdnJOHCY

CombineZM software for focus stacking:
http://hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CZM/News.htm

Using Photoshop for focus stacking:
http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/post-processing-articles/focus-stacking-made-easy-with-photoshop/

Optical finish for acrylic -- vapor polishing and other techniques

I needed to polish two acrylic lenses that were made on a CNC lathe to the best possible finish (hopefully, optical quality). I made some test coupons and tried three different polishing techniques on three different surfaces to see which combination of techniques would yield the best results. The winner was clearly 2000 grit sandpaper followed by Novus No.2 polish.
Vapor polishing
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bduno3eafcc