A grant of more than $750,000 from the National Science Foundation will allow the purchase and installation of a new focused ion beam system for nanofabrication and nanomachining of materials in the Electron Microbeam Analysis Facility in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences on the UNM main campus. The new instrument will vastly aid research and allow for the development of new courses.
The microscope will be regularly used by more than 50 professors from five departments at UNM, from New Mexico State University and New Mexico Tech. It will be available to other collaborators in academia and industry.
A team of researchers at the Center for Microengineered Materials led by Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Abhaya Datye, Professor of Mechanical Engineering Zayd Leseman, and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Adrian J. Brearley, worked together on the grant proposal, which will directly benefit several departments.
Technical Capabilities and Uses
The dual focused ion beam system consists of an electron optical column for imaging (an environmental scanning electron microscope or ESEM) and an ion column that is used for nano-scale machining. The instrument is equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) system for microanalysis, and an electron back-scatter detector (EBSD) to obtain diffraction patterns of the sample. This combination of capabilities will enable research projects in materials science, engineering, and Earth and planetary sciences.
Faculty in Chemical Engineering will be able to study advanced catalysts for energy conversion and pollution control, durable fuel cells and defect free Ge/Si for low-cost photovoltaics. Other projects will include novel microfluidic devices, ion channels with potential use in DNA sequencing, cell-surface interactions in bio-films and aerosol derived particles for drug delivery.
Electrical Engineering faculty will use the instrument for increasing efficiency of lasers and infrared radiation detectors and to made advances in epitaxial growth of lattice-mismatched materials.
Civil and Mechanical Engineering faculty will use the instrument to improve understanding of scale effects on mechanical properties, particularly at the nanoscale and to enable research of the mechanics of grain boundary sliding and photonic band gap materials as sensors to detect damage in critical facilities.
Research by Faculty in Earth and Planetary Sciences includes studies of deformation and metamorphism in high-pressure metamorphic rocks formed during continental collisions and the nature of fluid/rock interactions in the Earth’s upper mantle. This research is essential for understanding the geochemical interactions between crust and mantle. Detailed studies of magnetic carriers in rocks will improve researchers' ability to understand the paleomagnetic record that is necessary for constraining the tactic evolution of complex geologic terrains around the world.
In addition the instrument will transform the ability of researchers to study site-specific regions of the earliest solids formed in the solar system and found in carbonaceous chondrites and comet particles returned by the NASA Stardust mission. The samples will be characterized structurally, chemically and isotopically to study their complex formational and thermal histories.
More information about the instrument and research is available by contacting Abhaya Datye (505) 277-0477; email datye@unm.edu or Zayd Leseman (505) 277-4940; zleseman@unm.edu or Adrian Brearley at (505) 277-4163; brearley@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu