Acquisition of Instrumentation for a Materials Characterization and Fabrication Facility

Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley MA

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program, the Department of Chemistry at Mount Holyoke College will acquire a suite of instruments for the characterization and fabrication of materials, including equipment for photolithography, a light microscope, a differential scanning calorimeter, and an instrument for measuring dynamic light scattering. The equipment will be used in four research projects at Mount Holyoke, all involving undergraduate students: the preparation of surface supported microgels using photolithography; the characterization of random coil/beta- sheet/aggregate transitions in a prion peptide; the use of threefold organic acceptors as building blocks for new donor-acceptor assembled materials; and the study of self-assembly of weakly interacting colloids on patterned interfaces. In addition, the equipment will be used in laboratory experiments in a new upper-level elective course in nanotechnology and existing courses in experimental methods and chemical thermodynamics. The research projects and laboratory experiments described in this proposal will be used to expose undergraduate students to problems and methodologies at the cutting edge of chemical science. The chemistry department at Mount Holyoke has a well-established track record for involving undergraduate women in productive research, and the proposed project will help to sustain and expand that effort. New curricular materials and pedagogical approaches developed with the instrumentation from this project will be disseminated to the broader chemical education community.