NISPLab Welcomes UMD VP for Research

University of Maryland Vice President for Research Mel Bernstein and Associate Vice President for Research Development Ken Gertz 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. Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) assistant professor John Cumings hosted the visit.

Cumings gave Berstein and Gertz an overview of the lab's unique capabilities and new, cutting-edge equipment, including a JEM 2100 LaB₆ transmission electron microscope (TEM) coupled with fiber optic, video-rate imaging, which allows scientists to observe devices and conditions both in situ and in real time; a new Hitachi SU-70 field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM)—the first of its kind installed in the U.S.—equipped with an energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometer (EDS) used for elemental mapping; a JEOL 2100F atomic-resolution field emission transmission electron microscope (FE-TEM); and a JEOL JXA-89 electron microprobe equipped with a wavelength-dispersive x-ray spectrometer (WDS), used primarily in materials and geology research.

Cumings hopes the visit will contribute to the NISPLab's goals. "Our desire is to a large extent simply to get the word out to attract new users, new benefactors, and new funded research projects. The [Office of the Vice President for Research] is a great place to centralize all of these efforts." Contacts brought in by the UMCP Division of Research help support the faculty and students using the NISPLab.

University of Maryland President C.D. Mote, Jr., also plans to visit the NISPLab in 2008.

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Published December 19, 2007