I would like to let you know I’ll be on vacation from July 18th to 22nd and will not be available to run TEM sessions or training sessions during that period of time at the FEI 200kV Titan Themis STEM.
Also, a new rooftop chiller will be installed soon at the STEM lab and the instrument will be unavailable. I’ll let you know when that is going to happen.
Regards,
Erico Freitas
An Advanced Metalworks Enterprise undergraduate student team, sponsored by Lear Corporation, is studying the performance of copper electrical wires in automobiles. Corrosion is the most common failure mechanism of wires used in crimp connectors; deformation in the wire terminal’s tin plating can cause additional contact issues within the connector. Electron microscopy aids in pinpointing the location of corrosion products on the wire and observing deformation in the tin plating. With this analysis, the team can now explore ways to improve the wire quality or crimping mechanism to minimize wire failures.
Image taken by Eli Harma and Reese Eichner, senior undergraduate materials science and engineering students, on Philips XL 40 ESEM.
Learn more about the Advanced Metalworks Enterprise at MTU: AME Website
Visit the Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory’s webpage to learn more about our shared facility and instruments available to the Michigan Tech research community: ACMAL
The successful fabrication of miniature optical components is key for progressing current optical technologies. A family of such miniature optical components must be able to efficiently rotate linearly polarized light at small scales. Estefanio Kesto, under the guidance of Dr. Miguel Levy, is studying the interaction between light and ferromagnetic iron garnet nanostructures. It has been observed that the polarization rotation of linearly polarized light, known as the magneto-optic response, traveling through such a nanostructure will be enhanced. The ferromagnetic iron garnet nanostructures pictured above, which enhance the magneto-optic response, are being studied to further miniaturize polarization rotators and other interferometric components. Additionally, Professor Levy and his research group are diving into the unexplored region of magneto-optic beam splitting and its applications in classical and quantum computing.
Pillars fabricated and image taken by Estefanio Kesto, undergraduate student in electrical engineering, using ACMAL’s Hitachi FB-2000A FIB, Hitachi S-4700 FE-SEM, and Asylum Research MFP-3D Origin+ AFM.
Read more about the Dr. Miguel Levy’s research in the following articles:
Nonreciprocal magneto-optic beam splitting
Visit the Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory’s webpage to learn more about our shared facility and instruments available to the Michigan Tech research community: ACMAL
The work done on the EDS last October is complete and the system is functional.
Low/Ultra Low Voltage and Pressure Imaging in SEM
Bob Passeri
Hitachi High-Tech America, Schaumberg, IL
Thursday, February 10, 2022 2 -3 p.m.
Research Scientist Erico T. F. Freitas has joined ACMAL and Materials Science and Engineering. He will manage the FEI 200kV Titan Themis STEM in ACMAL’s Electron Optics Facility. Freitas has experience in nanostructured materials characterization, with specialties in TEM, STEM, EELS, EFTEM, EDX, and electron diffraction.
Freitas worked previously in the multiuser electron microscopy facility managing the TEM at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil.
ACMAL will have limited hours over the upcoming holiday break.
The university will be closed on Dec 23 through Jan 1. The building will be locked on those days. Unrestricted users will have unlimited access to the building and labs. Restricted users have access during the other days. We ask that newly trained users make appointments during the period so someone is near in case there are troubles.
Dr. Ed Laitila and Liz Miller will be out the entire 2 week period. Dr. Tim Leftwich, Josh King, Kyle Hrubecky, and Aleister Kerr will be available by appointment.
If there are problems contact us. Our contact information is:
Liz: 906-370-6538
Ed: 906-369-2041
Aleister: 520-576-3557
Josh: 404-808-2803
Tim: trleftwi@mtu.edu
Happy Holidays,
Elizabeth Miller
The Vice President for Research Office (VPR) has awarded Century II Campaign Endowed Equipment Fund (C2E2) awards at the recommendation of the C2E2 Committee.
Among the recipients is Elizabeth Miller (MSE) for Purchase of a Large Window Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy Detector for the ACMAL Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope.
The Laboratory of Mechanistic Glycobiology research group, led by Dr. Tarun Dam, is studying how the function of biomolecules from plant cells translates to human cells. Hemolysin X is a biomolecule that can disrupt and disintegrate cell membranes. The image above depicts how Hemolysin X systematically disintegrates a red blood cell. The research group is looking into how this molecule reacts with other types of mammalian cells, including cancer cells.
Image taken by Jared Edwards, Chemistry PhD candidate, on ACMAL’s Hitachi S-4700 FE-SEM.
Learn more about the Laboratory of Mechanistic Glycobiology research group: Laboratory of Mechanistic Glycobiology
Visit the Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory’s webpage to learn more about our shared facility and instruments available to the Michigan Tech research community: ACMAL
Dr. Smitha Rao, assistant professor for Biomedical Engineering at Michigan Tech, and the Biomedical µDevices research team developed a way to be able to observe how breast cancer cells grow and migrate in various environments. The project developed scaffolding systems that mimic structures that could be found in human tissue. They engineered three polycaprolactone scaffold structures to test different topographical and mechanical features: hexagonal, mesh-like and aligned.
The image was taken by Dr. Smitha Rao’s graduate and undergraduate students using ACMAL’s Hitachi S-4700 FE-SEM.
Read more about Dr. Rao and the Biomedical µDevices research team’s work:
Visit the Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory’s webpage to learn more about our shared facility and instruments available to the Michigan Tech research community: ACMAL
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