UNM is the only university in the United States that owns the Hitachi S-5200 - the highest resolution scanning electron microscope available today.
The $800,000 microscope was dedicated today in the Ferris Engineering Building. According to Hitachi's Web site, the microscope can see detail in an object as small as half a nanometer. A nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter.
"I still have a hard time fathoming it," said Geoff Courtin, the research engineer who runs the microscope's lab.
A soundproof room was installed in the lab to house the loud pumps, chillers and control systems required to run the microscope, professor Abhaya Datye said.
"The acoustics are very important when you're working at such a high magnification," he said. "You can't talk when you're working at a million magnification. The sound waves will cause enough vibration that things start moving."
Datye started the process of trying to fund the microscope's purchase in December 2002.
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Images from the microscope can be accessed online in real time, allowing researchers at other universities to use it as though it was in their own lab, Datye said. He added that the Web application also allows instructors to use the microscope as a tool in class without actually having to take the class into the lab.
"Not only can I bring it to any classroom on campus, I can bring it to high schools," Datye said. "I can bring nanoscience to any place that has the Internet."
He said many researchers in New Mexico are trying to advance the nanoscience and nanomaterials field, and he intends for UNM to share the equipment with the whole state. The focus on collaboration was part of what got UNM a grant from the National Science Foundation, he said. The grant was one of two, which along with funds from UNM and the state, went toward buying the microscope and setting up its lab.
The microscope has been on campus for three months and graduate students are already using it.
"They (students) have an instrument that no other university in the U.S. has," Dayte said. "They are on the cutting edge of nanoresearch."
One group is using it to examine ways to make cars more efficient in cleaning up exhaust, he said. Another is looking at drug delivery systems, he said, and creating particles that can release a drug slowly so it is effective over a long period of time.
Professor Plamen Atanassov's group is looking at advanced bio fuel cells, Datye said. The cells could be used to power devices implanted in the body using natural chemicals in the body, and not other power sources like batteries that would have to be replaced, he said.
Students who want to use the microscope can contact Courtin to set up a schedule for training. Training costs a flat fee of $300, on top of the $40 hourly fee.
"It's not something you would do just for the novelty of it because it's fairly expensive," Courtin said.
The lab provides the few supplementary materials needed to use the microscope. Students can sign up to use the microscope online.
