MRI: Acquisition of SEM and EDX Facility

Montana Technological University, Butte MT

Investigators

Abstract

Montana Tech will acquire a new scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an attached energy-dispersive x-ray microanalysis (EDX) system. The system consists of a variable pressure SEM (LEO 1430 VP) and a digital x-ray detector with a PGT-SPIRIT EDX system. Both units operate from PCs running Windows 2000. The SEM is essentially automatic, facilitating usage by inexperienced operators. The EDX system also will be far easier to use. The SEM will have excellent imaging performance at low accelerating voltage and at chamber pressures that permit observation of wet specimens. Hence the biosciences faculty, graduate and undergraduate students will have a system that will meet almost any need for SEM viewing of specimens. In consequence a significant female faculty and student body will have SEM/EDX access not presently possible. Besides the metallurgy/materials department other departments such as geology, environmental engineering, chemistry and health, safety and industrial hygiene will similarly benefit. Although a new SEM/EDX facility will open doors for undergraduate training, the major role of the system will be to facilitate the ongoing research of faculty and graduate students. Much faculty and graduate student research is environmentally oriented since Butte is the location of the country's largest Superfund site. In other departments faculty researchers and their graduate students have similarly found it necessary to use the MSU SEM/EDX facility. Undergraduate students in many departments are required to propose and carry out a senior thesis research project and a new SEM/EDX facility will attract interested undergraduates from all over campus. The new SEM/EDX system will be connected to the campus computer network permitting remote diagnostic troubleshooting when needed. Network connection will also allow for remote on-campus access to the SEM/EDX. When this is successfully established it will permit undergraduate classes to experience relatively directly the applications of SEM/EDX to their field. It will then be extended to the Distance Learning program, which deals with 36 tribal colleges thereby allowing access to Native Americans. In the future the SEM/EDX facility would become part of the infrastructure needed for the college to play an active role in the Montana NSF-EPSCOR program, two target areas of which are nanotechnology and self-replicating biological structures.