About the Author

My name is Brad Larson and I currently reside in Madison, Wisconsin (U.S.A.). My day job is with SonoPlot, Inc., where I am a co-founder and currently the Chief Technology Officer. We design and sell fluid dispensing systems that function on the microscale and are used in manufacturing microelectronics and for biological research. In my off hours, I do work on my personal software projects through Sunset Lake Software.

I was born and raised in a small north-central Wisconsin town called Waupaca. Adjacent to the town are a series of beautiful crystal-clear lakes that are impossible to tear yourself away from in the summer months. In my opinion, the best of them is Sunset Lake, where you can sit out on a pier and watch the sun go down in absolute silence.

I've been programming from an early age, ever since my parents brought home an Apple II+. In fact, I taught myself symbolic algebra just so I could read and write BASIC code. Mostly, it was just something I did for fun, but I started putting that skill to use when I worked part-time at the Waupaca Foundry during my high school and college years. More recently, I've programmed control or data capture systems for scientific equipment.

I am an engineer by training, with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering (and an area minor in Computer Science) from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. I also have an M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin, here in Madison. My doctoral work focused on the use of controlled ultrasonics for microscale fluid dispensing, as well as cold plasmas and their application in chemically treating surfaces in an inexpensive and environmentally friendly manner. Listed below are my publications, all of which can be downloaded from this site.

Publications

S.D. Gillmor, B.J. Larson, J.M. Braun, C.E. Mason, L.E. Cruz-Barba, F. Denes, and M.G. Lagally. Low-Contact-Angle Polydimethyl Siloxane (PDMS) Membranes for Fabricating Micro-Bioarrays. Proceedings of the 2nd Annual International IEEE-EMBS Special Topic Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine & Biology, eds. A Dittmar and D. Beebe, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 51 (2002).
H. Cheun, B. Tanto, W. Chunwaschirasiri, B. Larson, and M. J. Winokur. Near-term aging and thermal behavior of polyfluorene in various aggregation states. Applied Physics Letters 84, 22-24 (2004).
B.J. Larson, S.D. Gillmor, and M.G. Lagally. Controlled deposition of picoliter amounts of fluid using an ultrasonically driven micropipette. Review of Scientific Instruments 75, 832-836 (2004).
B. Yang, M. S. Marcus, D. G. Keppel, P. P. Zhang, Z. W. Li, B. J. Larson, D. E. Savage, J. M. Simmons, O. M. Castellini, M. A. Eriksson, and M. G. Lagally. Template-directed carbon nanotube network using self-organized Si nanocrystals. Applied Physics Letters 86, 263107 (2005).
B. J. Larson, J. M. Helgren, S. O. Manolache, A. Y. Lau, M. G. Lagally, and F. S. Denes. Cold-plasma modification of oxide surfaces for covalent biomolecule attachment. Biosensors and Bioelectronics 21, 796-801 (2005).
B. J. Larson. New technologies for fabricating biological microarrays. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, August (2005).
H. Cheun, P. P. Rugheimer, B. J. Larson, P. Gopalan, M. G. Lagally, and M. J. Winokur. Polymer light emitting diodes and poly(di-n-octylfluorene) thin films as fabricated with a microfluidics applicator. Journal of Applied Physics 100, 073510 (2006).
B. J. Larson. Rendering techniques for molecular visualization on mobile devices. Nanotechnology 2012: Electronics, Devices, Fabrication, MEMS, Fluidics and Computational, 681 - 684 (2012).

Patents / Patent Applications

B.J. Larson, C.H. Lee, A.Lal, and M.G. Lagally. Methods and apparata for precisely dispensing microvolumes of fluids. U.S. Patent # 6874699 (2005).
F.S. Denes, S.O. Manolache, L.E. Cruz-Barba, B.J. Larson, and M.G. Lagally. Plasma-enhanced functionalization of carbon containing substrates. U.S. Patent # 7276283 (2007).
F.S. Denes, S.O. Manolache, J.M. Helgren, B.J. Larson, and M.G. Lagally. Plasma-enhanced functionalization of inorganic oxide substrates. U.S. Patent # 7723126 (2010).
B.J. Larson and T.P. Blandino. Control system for simulated moving bed chromatography . U.S. Patent # 7806137 (2010).
B.J. Larson and J.W. Baier. Device for detecting interaction with an object. U.S. Patent # 7849738 (2010).