Featured Image: ACMAL Researchers! Submit your research posters, PPTs, PDFs, abstracts, and images for the new Education & Research page. The Featured Image is a screen from Ed Laitila's talk on X-ray scattering. You may submit any type of content for which you or Michigan Tech owns the intellectual property rights. Sample micrographs are also needed for the instrument pages. Please help to educate students and other facility users about the high quality research being done in a world-class facility like ACMAL.
Featured Image: Look for new Electron Optics Facility lab assistant Claire Drom. Claire is a first year student at Michigan Tech majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Pre-Medicine. Originally from the suburbs of Houston, TX, Claire has come to somewhat-less-than tropical Houghton in order to pursue her avid love of the outdoors and snow. She is currently the president of the American Chemical Society on campus and a coach in the Biology Learning Center. Her non-academic interests include hiking, camping, roller coasters, and art. Electron microscopes have always fascinated Claire, and she is thrilled at the opportunity to work with such amazing pieces of technology. Claire views ACMAL as providing her with skills for a future career in a field based on ever-advancing technologies, and as a chance to become involved in cutting-edge research projects at Tech.
Featured Image: In microanalysis, understanding of the active region is critical. The X-Ray spectrum may pick up elements from neighboring phases if the beam size exceeds the phase region of interest. Dr. John Pilling, Technical Director of Electric Park Research, supplies us with a java applet for simulating X-Ray generation in an electron microscope. The interactive, online simulator allows researchers to change parameters such as energy, angle, substrate type, thickness, and so on to estimate and view the characteristic active region for the material.
Featured Image: Electron Optics Engineer and ACMAL Electron Microscopy director Owen P. Mills has just received his MS from the Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences. The title of his presentation was "Comparison of 3D Stereo SEM Shape Data with 2D Projections and BET Surface Area Data for Volcanic Ash: When 3D Might Be Advantageous". The first two rows in the image above show equivalent spheres for ash particles of different sizes and shapes. The third row indicates how the unknown bottom surface shape of a particle is substituted with the shape of the particle top.
Featured Image: Farewell to Raghav! Our friend, Raghav Vanga, now Dr. Vanga, is leaving us for a job search in California. Raghav has been a Physics PhD student, a SEM lab instructor, lab supervisor, friend and colleague to many here in the M&M Building. We are proud to say that Raghav has mastered many of the tools in our facility. He will be missed. He says he will be back but we are sure after a few months of California "winter" we won't see him till summer. We wish him the best in all his future endeavors. Left: Raghav Vanga. Right: Owen Mills.
Featured Image: ACMAL operates with the indispensible help of Kiersten Schierbeek (left) and Raghav Vanga (right). Undergraduate student Kiersten operates and solves problems for the 6400 SEM, specializes in coating samples, handles critical cleaning operations for filament exchanges, and maintains sample holders. In addition, Kiersten contributes text and photo content for ACMAL eTraining. You can see her hosting several video demonstrations of the 6400 SEM. Graduate student Raghav responds to equipment problems for FESEM and FIB users when Electron Optics Engineer Owen Mills is away from the facility. Raghav also is an expert with FESEM and FIB applications and assists/operates the equipment for other students who use these tools.
Featured Image: The SEM is used to classify the shape of an ash particle. The top row shows a stereo-pair image of a fine volcanic ash particle from the August 1992 Crater Peak/Spurr eruption. The bottom row features a grayscale and height contour digital elevation map. The comparison of 3D data with 2D projection and surface area data were the subject of a poster by Owen Mills, William Rose, and A. J. Durant for the 2007 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held last December in San Francisco, CA.
To Play: Go to ACMAL eTraining. Click on Microanalysis. Click on Interactive X-Ray Mapping Challenge.
Featured Image: The Interactive X-Ray Mapping Challenge is featured in the Microanalysis section of ACMAL eTraining. In this challenge you can identify regions of Minnesota Lunar Simulant, a basalt originating from a lava flow in the south part of Duluth. You will need Flash Player installed. Roll your mouse over the sample mineral regions to reveal the chemical constituents needed to identify each region type.
Featured Image: The Nanoscope II is located in the Atomic Force Microscopy Lab in the 6th floor of the M&M Building. This instrument uses a cantilever tip, shown in the monitor, which allows direct measurement of the interaction force between the tip and a surface. This permits characterization of surface properties at nearly molecular length scales. The atomic force microscope is a type of scanning probe microscope, a subject taught in the course MY 5580 by Dr. Jarek Drelich. ACMAL is assuming operation of the AFM Lab.
Featured Image: There is an immediate job opening as a staff member with Geller. Geller MicroÅnalytical Laboratory, Inc. provides analytical services and design and manufacturing of a limited number of unique products that are directly related to microanalysis, including computer control systems used in ACMAL. Logo used with permission. There is no affiliation between ACMAL and Geller.
