Services

The Neurotechnology Laboratory’s focus is on all aspects of optics, especially microscopy, and electrophysiology. Within this broad area, we offer the following services.

Consultation

Not sure what to buy? We can discuss your experimental needs, and we can offer advice on the most appropriate commercially available products. Your needs cannot be fulfilled commercially? We can discuss which parts of your setup have to be custom made.

Equipment design

If you are custom building part of your setup, we can help you with the design of the optics and the mechanical engineering.

Instrument building

The Neurotechnology Laboratory has a range of machining equipment in-house, and access to other equipment around campus to construct your equipment, large and small. Much of this equipment is also available for your own use, after suitable training.

Systems engineering

Modern rigs commonly consist of many instruments from different vendors. We can help you getting all these parts to “talk” to each other.

Software development

Sometimes, the software provided by hardware manufacturers is not suitable for a particular series of experiments. In such cases, crafting custom software may be the best solution. We can help you determine whether that is indeed the case in your situation, and develop appropriate software.

Knowledge transfer

Quite frequently, multiple Caltech labs face similar instrumentation challenges. The Neurotechnology Laboratory can play a role in forging connections across labs. Likewise, the Laboratory can play a role in retaining technical knowledge when key graduate students or postdocs leave a lab.