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Pomona
College to Demonstrate New Field Emission Scanning
Electron
Microscope at Open House
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Pomona College will hold an open house to demonstrate their
new field emission scanning electron microscope, on
Thursday, May 13, from 4-6 p.m. The event will be held in
room B12 of the College’s Millikan Laboratory Building (610
North College Avenue, Claremont) and is open to the public.
“The new field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM)
is the same type of equipment used in state of the art
research labs across the country," says David Tanenbaum, a
professor of physics at Pomona, and the person who
spearheaded the effort to bring the new microscope to
campus. “Being able to use this equipment in their research
will better prepare students for graduate school as well as
careers in applied sciences, such as working for technology
companies.”
The FE-SEM can be used to view objects significantly smaller
than those that can be seen with the college’s optical
microscopes, and it can more rapidly change between
magnifications, going from 20 power magnification to 200,000
power magnification, in about ten seconds.
Optical microscopes use glass lenses that bend visible light
in order to magnify images but cannot be used to view
objects smaller that the wavelength of light. The lowest
wavelengths of visible light are somewhat less than half a
micron. (One micron equals 1/1000 millimeter). The FE-SEM
uses magnetic fields that guide electrons, which have much
smaller wavelengths than photons in visible light and
therefore can magnify smaller objects.
“One of the major motivating factors to get this equipment,”
says Tanenbaum, “was student accessibility. It’s fairly
difficult and expensive for students to become proficient
with this equipment when using equipment off-campus and
charged for access, which can be as high as $200 per hour.
It takes two hours to learn the basics of using the FE-SEM
and another 20 hours to become proficient. So, the costs get
very high very quickly.”
Specific research projects planned for the new equipment
include: fabrication and characterization of nanomechanical
structures for high-sensitivity sensors, in-plane patterning
and chirality control of carbon nanotubes for nanotube based
electronics, novel low-cost nanofabrication process
development, micro/nano-fluidic research for advancing
biochip technologies, and selective gas microsensor
development in collaboration with national laboratories. A
key feature of these projects, says Tanenbaum, is that
undergraduate students will be involved in the research.
One of Tanenbaum’s summer projects will involve carbon
nanotubes, which are thought to be leading candidate for
making the next era of faster electronics. The main hurdle
to developing the technology is that the tubes do not
naturally grow in an organized, usable order. Tanenbaum will
use the new microscope in his attempts to control the
location and direction of growth of carbon nanotubes.
The Pomona College departments of biology, chemistry,
geology and physics, as well as the Keck Graduate Institute,
all contributed to the purchase of the FE-SEM, which arrived
on campus in April. It is valued at $250,000 and was
purchased from Princeton University.
Pomona College, one of the nation's premier liberal arts
colleges, offers a comprehensive program in the arts,
humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Founded
in 1887, the college’s hallmarks include small classes,
close relationships between students and faculty, and a
range of opportunities for student research.
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