Emergent Microscopy Practicals (1-3)

UM-StL Physics 4306 (2002/3/4/5)

Physics 4306, 4381, 6400, or 6490: 1-3 Credit Hours of Basics, Readings, Special Topics, or Research on
the capabilities and limitations of developing nanoworld microscopy methods. In a nutshell, this is a three-part web/lab course for future users/clients of nanomicroscopy data and other nano-technology developments, designed to fill the gap nationally for the growing group of researchers in myriad fields who need to know what to make of information provided to them by nanoworld explorers. The three original 1/3-semester modules were intended to introduce electron microscopy, materials microscopy, and scanning probe microscopy. As new modules become available e.g. on biological microscopy, light microscopy, light and electron spectroscopy, synthesis and modeling techniques, surface analysis methods and molecule pattern-amplification tools, the formal name of this course might change from Emergent Microscopy Practicals to Nanoscale Science Practicals.

Latest Developments:
• To students in Mike Nichol's CHEM 5794 "Proteins as Polymers: Implications for Neurodegeneration and Disease" course, thanks for your time on Wed 9 Feb 2005, and for stopping by here. Send me an e-mail with your blackboard login name, if you'd like me to add our nanoscale science and technology content area to your blackboard menu. You can find links to various simulators below, and in the blackboard area under Course Documents / Electron Microscopy Notes you'll find "slide handouts" from the talk.

• Collected nanodetective applets.
• We are likely going to recommend a different book for the WS2004 semester, namely Ian Watt's Principles and Practice of Electron Microscopy (Cambridge, 2nd edition, 1997). In addition to covering electron microscope basics, it also (lightly) surveys other nanoscale characterization methods (e.g. SPM, SIMS). It is weak on strategies for detective work at the atomic scale, which we can happily supplement with our own web content. I have a copy in my office, in case you would like to take a look.
• Let us know what you discover on our new web-based variable size-scale adventure, and in particular how you react to the puzzlers listed there. Ideas for new storylines and specimen structures are invited as well.
• Thu 17 Jan '02: Let me know if you are having trouble accessing mygateway, and make sure I have the e-mail address which you prefer to use for course traffic. The first assignment is scheduled to go out by e-mail on Sunday upcoming.
• Mon 14 Jan '02: Enrollees in the course should send me an e-mail about their background and interests vis a vis nanomicroscopy.
• Check my gateway (and further e-mails) for details as they are put together this week. E-mail, plus discussions and content on mygateway, will constitute most of course activity not taking place in a lab
• I'm recommending the book by Williams and Carter for those especially interested in the 2nd module (Materials Microscopy). Look it over at the bookstore, and if you are not sure (e.g. if your primary interest is SPM) then let's talk before you buy.
• Students may now register directly for P306 (ref#21410).
• Campus goes to Win2k in WS02: Atmosphere WebLab look out!
• Login as Alice2 password madhat for some mygateway links.

Proposed boilerplate for...

Physics 4306 (306) EMERGENT MICROSCOPY PRACTICALS
Credit hours: 1.0 credit hour per module with a maximum of 3 credit hours

Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. A critical web-based/laboratory study of developing nanoworld microscopy techniques, designed for microscopy clients and future microscope operators. The course consists of three modules, each 1/3 semester in length, chosen from a possibly larger set to include (a) electron, (b) materials, and (c) scanned-probe microscopy: instrumentation, wide ranging uses, and weaknesses to avoid. Each module requires two lab visits for hands-on experience, and three sessions of structured web and e-mail interaction per week.

Primary (1/3)-semester modules will likely cover (a) electron microscopy in general, (b) microscopy of materials, and (c) scanning probe microscopy in general. We would like to eventually see the choices for the three modules expand, to cover for example biological microscopy, LASER confocal microscopy, dynamic (imaging) secondary ion mass spectrometry, forensic and environmental microscopy, and other emerging techniques for exploring the nanoworld one piece at a time. All modules will in broad strokes cover: (i) specimens they work on, (ii) instrumentation they require, (iii) data they generate, (iv) and what to look for in the data to determine what it might, or might not, mean.

To be more specific about the first 3 modules above, electron microscopy practicals cover specimen requirements for TEM and SEM, instrument features (electron guns, lenses, detectors, vacuum systems, SEM and TEM optics), types of data generated (e.g. transmitted, backscattered, secondary electron images, EDS and EELS spectra), and questions crucial to determining what the observations may or may not mean (e.g. calibrations, resolution, sampling statistics); materials microscopy practicals cover specimen types, crystallography, and XTEM prep, instrumentation features (e.g. control of the scattering experiment with specimen tilt, and the range of beam angles and energies), types of data accessible (e.g. diffraction contrast, darkfield / weakbeam / HREM imaging, selected-area / convergent-beam diffraction), and interpretation (e.g. contrast transfer, and the strong NO's of diffraction analysis); scanning probe microscopy practicals cover specimen requirements for tunneling and atomic force (e.g. flatness, size, conductivity), instrument features (tunnelling, force, tapping-mode, and possibly optical feedback loops, tips and cantilevers, time-domain noise, air / vacuum / fluid-cell issues), data types (e.g. topography, lateral force, and conductivity maps, band structure measurements), and what questions to ask before believing them. Each of these will be presented with help from application examples in a long laundry-list of fields (materials, metallurgy, particulates, organism / tissue / cell / molecular biology, catalysis, forensics, electronics, thin films, etc.)

This course will be designed to exploit the scheduling flexibility of web-based interactions and simulations, and to minimize the number of laboratory visits for off-campus participants (faculty as well as students). Experts from more than one area university and industry, and perhaps some from outside of the region, will likely help out. Students likewise may hail from more than one port, especially if NSF funding for curriculum development, in collaboration with researchers in environmental engineering at Washington U. and at UM campuses across the state, materializes in the Fall.

Physics 306 will also be designed to foster peer-instruction, so that the perspective of all participants in the course contributes to the experience of everyone, making it a useful exercise (in the one-room school-house sense) for participants with a wide range of backgrounds. To facilitate this interaction, one can expect perhaps three web-interaction deadlines per week: For example, the weekly assignment may be sent out by midnight on Sunday night. Student participants appointed that week as "discussion leaders" must submit questions about the assignment by midnight Tuesday night. Responses to the questions by all students will be due by Thursday night. Individual assignment results for the week will then be due in Sunday night, at which time the cycle begins to repeat.

You can register directly for Physics 306 (see What's New above). If this is not an option, you might instead register for three hours of Physics 381, provided you check with the course organizer (pfraundorf@umsl.edu) with a note first about your background and interests.

• What kind of microscope took this picture?
• Is that microscope image telling me what I think it's telling me?
• How much faith can I put in that microscopist's assertion?
• What about this image is not what it seems?
• How can I turn a piece of paper into a fish-eye lens?
• From the vantage point of a micro-human, spiders look like...
• Can a close look at that powder tell me if it contains pollen?
• Why do electron microscopes cost about $3 per electron volt?
• What can primary, 2ndary, and backscattered electons do for me?
• What kind of microscope can "weigh" a zeptoliter-sized bowl?
• What happens when a 20,000 volt electron encounters a penny?
• How might microscopy help me with this problem?
• Do flea-whiskers have whiskers?

Slippery monolayers on mica after an HF dip

Etched trail of a Uranium atom recoiling from alpha decay

Carbon atoms amid leaves in a very dark storm

Computer chip on a path to the new student center

Platinum atoms on graphite in the St. Louis morning sun

You might instead think of this as a course in Trans-nano Electron-assisted self-Miniaturization. A web-quiz on lattice and reciprocal lattice indexing can be found here.

This course is geared towards training students to effectively use a TEM and its various accoutrements for the analysis of electron scattering and x-ray generation by specimens. The theory part will cover the basic physics of Transmission Electron Microscopy, so that information obtainable from specimens is understood. The lab part deals with operation of such instruments, including a computer-controlled Hitachi H600 TEM and an atomic-resolution Philips EM430 SuperTwin AEM in our lab. Some prior experience with electron microscopes (e.g. via the scanning electron microscope, offered in the fall) is recommended.

To take the course, apply to enroll by e-mail or in person with the course instructors. The first class meeting will likely be from 9am to 11am on Saturday, August 28, 1999 in Molecular 101. Stop in to participate in the discussion if for no other reason!

The course will will be taught primarily by Prof. Jimmy Liu at Monsanto (before that John Cowley's group at Arizona State University). We have two operating TEM's (including a million dollar instrument under $30K/yr service contract which can resolve atoms) available for the course, as well as two SEM's, and some scanning probe microscopes in a triple bi-story building designed for such instruments from the ground up.

New, Answer What?, Local Pages, External Links, More Books, OverView, HomeWork,

What's New?

• A draft syllabus can be found here.
• A note on cross-sections and mean-free-paths to clarify Chapter 2 of Williams/Carter.
• Draft description of a possible summer workshop series targeted toward analytical service clients rather than operators.
• Schematic on the focussing effect of magnetic lenses.

• Why image with electrons rather than light?
• What about micro and nano-worlds can a scanning electron microscope tell?
• How accurately may grain-size and RMS roughness be measured here?
• What knob should I turn next?
• What is and determines resolution?

A few of the many resources elsewhere on the web:
Teaching/Learning Materials: Scanning Electron Microscopy Stuff at Iowa State University. Introduction to SEM at Dartmouth. Operating Instructions for various scope types at University of Minnesota's CIE Characterization Facility. What are electron microscopes, at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. American University Electron Microscopy Lecture Notes. George Phillips' Diffraction/Scattering Notes & Teaching Article Links. Biozentrum tutorials in Basel on practical light and electron microscopy. Nanoworld notes from the University of Queensland, Australia. Allen Sampson's Analyticus Pandectes and Microscellaneousities.
Some colorized images The MicroAngela (Tina Carvalho) gallery at University of Hawaii (Manoa). Dennis Kunkel's and David Scharf's false colored images. The David Scharf poster set at Microscopy Today. Dennis Kunkel's watermarked bug mugs, also at UH. Some red-green 3D images for those who can't wait for interactive-microscopial virtualtinycity.
Labs & Links: MicroWorld Resources & News Microscopy Link List Our Scanned Tip and Electron Image Lab Link List. Scott Miller's electron microscopy lab page at UM-Rolla. Page on Lehigh Microscopy Short Courses. San Joaquin Delta College Microscopy Program Home Page. University of Oklahoma's Virtual Library on Microscopy.
Other Stuff: Frank Potter's Science Gems. Kenny Felder's Math and Physics Help pages. Univ. Oregon Student Physics Problems Page What is d^3x/dt^3? Check sci.physics' Frequently Asked Questions. Contemporary Physics Education Project's Particle Adventure. Other physics education links that may be of interest include those at: physlink, yahoo, quantum, c3p, & tiptop...