Recent technological developments have made it possible for chemists and biologists to 'visualize" chemical reactions and processes in new ways. In particular, improvements in the spatial resolution of scanning probe techniques permits the probing of primary chemical events at the microscopic level. This project will permit undergraduate students in our analytical chemistry laboratory to perform modern, state-of-the-art experiments aimed at probing some of these unseen microscopic aspects of chemistry. The addition of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) instrumentation into our undergraduate curriculum will permit measurements which probe the mall size dimensions characteristic of much of the microscopic world of chemistry. These capabilities will be immediately incorporated into our recently revised advanced instrumental course to offer a focus in surface and materials chemistry. We have also outlined experiments for introduction into our advanced physical chemistry laboratories and an experiment designed for a microscopy course offered in the Biology Department. A total of approximately 125 students in four courses including all of our BA and BS chemistry majors, will benefit directly from the proposed enhancements. In addition, another approximately 15 biology majors will get direct hands-on exposure to these new and exciting techniques. This cooperative effort reflects the fact that there is a commonality of interest and need among our advanced undergraduate laboratories. The K.U. Chemistry Department has begun to address this issue by the establishment of an undergraduate Instructional Instrumentation Laboratory (IIL). The instrumentation proposed in this project will become a part of the IIL undergraduate equipment inventory and thus will be available for use by all of our advanced undergraduate students, including those performing junior/senior research and majors from other departments. We believe this plan is a cost- effective way of implementing modern instrumental measurements.
