The curriculum of the Chemistry Department is improved by introducing a new set of material-science experiments in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) into the Physical Chemistry laboratory thereby significantly enhancing the education and training of graduates. Materials science, a relatively new, very important, and rapidly developing interdisciplinary field of science remains, for the most part, unexplored at the undergraduate level of instruction at this and most other institutions. Recent developments make STM and AFM affordable and accessible to the undergraduate laboratory and thereby provide the department with a straightforward method for teaching the fundamentally important concept of quantum mechanical tunneling and related STM and AFM technologies of piezoelectric positioning, vibration isolation, etc. This new set of experiments is incorporated in the Physical Chemistry laboratory, a gateway course for undergraduate chemistry majors. The curriculum also includes an American Chemical Society certified option in materials science. This equipment is the cornerstone of a materials science laboratory within the Chemistry Department. These courses can eventually support the university's materials program in the Mechanical Engineering Department. *
