Acquisition of an Energy-Filtering Transmission Electron Microscope for Nanocharacterization Research and Student Training.

Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland OH

Investigators

Abstract

This award from the Instrumentation for Materials Research program and the Major Research Instrumentation program will provide Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) partial funding for acquisition of 200 kV Field-Emission Gun, Energy-Filtering Transmission Electron Microscope, (EFTEM) LEO 923 LCs FEG OMEGA. The instrument will be for the Center for Surface Analysis of Materials (CSAM). CSAM provides instrument access to researchers and students from numerous departments across the campus as well as to researchers at any Ohio institution of higher education and to researchers at Federal laboratories, such as Wright Patterson Air Force Base and NASA Glenn Research Center. The new instrument complements the current instrumentation in CSAM with various new techniques of energy-filtering transmission electron microscopy, including zero-loss imaging, quantitative electron diffraction, and electron spectroscopic imaging. The synergy of its outstanding capabilities of high-resolution imaging, energy-filtering, and high spatial resolution chemical micro-analysis renders the LEO 923 a particularly powerful tool for studying the structure, composition, and electronic structure of a large variety of materials, including nanomaterials. EFTEM constitutes a new, enabling characterization tool in materials science. The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at CWRU has taken steps to increase the fraction of women undergraduates among the users of the proposed instrument, through programs with Ursuline College and through the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research. The award will strengthen ongoing collaborative research projects with two historically black colleges- Fisk and Tuskegee University - are already in place and more are planned. The proposed acquisition will enable a broad variety of research projects, including research in nanostructured epitaxial semiconductor heterosystems, electrodeposited metallization layers, nanocapacitors for memory devices, metal-matrix nanocomposites, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), thermal barrier coatings, and wide-bandgap semiconductors. This award from the Instrumentation for Materials Research program and the Major Research Instrumentation program will provide Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) partial funding for acquisition of 200 kV Field-Emission Gun, Energy-Filtering Transmission Electron Microscope, (EFTEM) LEO 923 LCs FEG OMEGA. The instrument will be for the Center for Surface Analysis of Materials. The center provides instrument access to researchers and students from numerous departments across the campus. The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at CWRU has taken steps to increase the fraction of women undergraduates among the users of the proposed instrument, through programs with Ursuline College and through the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research. Ongoing collaborative research projects with two historically black colleges- Fisk and Tuskegee University - are already in place and more are planned. The instrument will enable a broad variety of research projects, including research in nanostructured epitaxial semiconductor heterosystems, electrodeposited metallization layers, nanocapacitors for memory devices, metal-matrix nanocomposites, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), thermal barrier coatings, and wide-bandgap semiconductors.