"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."
This MRI proposal by Brown University requests support for the acquisition of an FEI Tecnai S20 transmission electron microscope (TEM) to serve the nanoscale imaging and micro/nano-characterization needs of the local research community. The proposed instrument addresses the need at Brown for a modern TEM imaging tool that will allow both conventional materials science studies for the understanding of the microstructure of materials used in electronic, structural, and biological applications and, at the higher resolutions at lower energies available with a field emitter (FE) source, new applications in biomedical and soft-matter physics. This tool will provide both the versatility and flexibility to satisfy the needs of our diverse research community by combining high performance in all imaging and diffraction modes with the ease of operation needed in a multi-user materials research environment. It will enable new material sciences research pursued by the faculty and students in departments across the physical sciences and beyond at Brown, including Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Biology, Archaeology and Biomedicine. Some ongoing research that will make use of the new FE TEM includes: studies of the nanoscale features of highly localized adiabatic shear bands formed in high strain rate deformation of steel; creation of nanopore-based prototype device structures for biomolecule analysis; analysis of interfaces and microstructure in the materials used in oxide electronics; understanding growth-related crystallographic defects in nanowire structures fabricated via novel chemical pathways; and evaluation of inclusions for the identification of the origins of archeological glass samples. More broadly, the selected instrument will provide the local research community with a capability that is not currently available anywhere in the state of Rhode Island.
The Brown University materials research community encompasses a diversity of disciplines that share a common interest in understanding materials at the atomic level. The acquisition of a modern transmission electron microscope (TEM) will enable researchers in Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Biology, and Archaeology to probe, image, and chemically characterize the structure of materials synthesized through a wide range of chemical, metallurgical, physical and biological processes. In the last century, it was discovered that a beam of electrons passing through a thin sample will interact with the sample?s atoms in ways that provide a wealth of chemical and structural insights while simultaneously providing images of features that are just a few atoms or molecules in size and impossible to see by other means. Researchers at Brown and the neighboring research community will use the capabilities of the new field emitter TEM (the only one in Rhode Island) to understand and ultimately control the nano- and micro- structure of materials used in a wide array of applications, Current research at Brown that will utilize this new capability includes: development of devices for the detection of DNA and other biomolecules, new oxide-based electronic devices, battery and fuel cell materials, and it will play a key role in the development of materials that are both strong and lightweight for improved energy efficiency in automotive and aerospace applications.
