Mote Visits NISPLab

University of Maryland President Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr. recently toured the Nanoscale Imaging, Spectroscopy and Properties (NISP) Laboratory, the university's premiere electron microscopy research and training facility serving the areas of chemistry, biology, geology, physics, materials science, and all of engineering. Mote is the latest of a variety of distinguished guests to visit and learn more about the NISPLab, including Vice President for Research Mel Bernstein, Associate Vice President for Research Development Ken Gertz, and representatives from Bruker AXS and Hitachi, the manufactuers of some of the lab's equipment. Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) assistant professor John Cumings hosted the visit.

Cumings, along with graduate students Yi Qi (MSE) and Kamal Baloch (Chemical Physics), and postdoctoral researcher Todd Brintlinger, demonstrated equipment and discussed recent research. Brintlinger demonstrated the new Hitachi SU-70 field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM)—which has been online for less than a month—for Mote, highlighting its ability to perform elemental mapping and capture color in realtime. Qi discussed the group's development and study of a new "meta material", a manmade crystal designed to help researchers understand the behavior of ice, using the NISPLab's JEOL 2100F atomic-resolution field emission transmission electron microscope (FE-TEM). Baloch discussed an ongoing project in thermal electron microscopy using the JEM 2100 LaB₆ transmission electron microscope (TEM) equipped with fiber optic, video-rate imaging. The technique will allow researchers to observe nanoscale devices as they are tested under varying conditions.

Cumings provided Mote with a history of the NISPLab, stressing its importance as a centralized resource for education and research for the entire University, as well as for outside clients.

For More Information:

Visit the NISPLab web site »

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Published February 5, 2008