Illinois State University has been awarded a grant to acquire an environmental scanning electron microscope for research and training in the Biology, Chemistry, Geography-Geology, and Physics programs. The microscope provides capabilities for observation of fine details of diverse specimens and for analysis of their elemental composition. In environmental mode, living organisms can be examined with no preparation. This makes it possible to observe delicate specimens that would be altered by conventional preparation methods. Faculty and students use the scope in research projects that include documenting physiological stress in plants; identifying single-celled algae that are indicators of past environmental conditions; characterizing mutant fruit flies; using elemental analysis to assess the chemistry of coordination complexes of the element vanadium; characterizing nanospheres; documenting surface structures in plants with defective cell expansion; examining structure of bacteria-host interactions and bacterial biofilms, evaluating geochemical interactions in fossils, making nanoscale measurements of thermoelectric lattices, comparing flower structure and development, evaluating synthesis of lithium cobalt oxide; and characterizing the material composition of new electrodes being developed for an improved scanning probe microscope. The results of these diverse studies will be published in peer-reviewed journals and integrated into courses and faculty websites as appropriate. Software for remote control operation of the scope will allow students in classrooms to observe specimens remotely. The scope will be featured at various community outreach events, and it will be available to other academic researchers in central Illinois.
