The department is providing undergraduate chemistry majors with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM). Students are gaining hands-on experience with a cutting-edge device capable of picturing surfaces at the atomic level, yet in an inexpensive package designed for convenience. Senior level chemistry students are experiencing tangible laboratory illustrations of atomic surfaces, enforcing ideas of polymeric and metallic bonding, quantum mechanical tunneling, unit cells and active sites. Such experience prepares students better for careers requiring knowledge of modern surface science, an area that has received an explosion of interest over the last ten years. The STM also exposes students to modern computer-interfaced instrumentation and image processing.
