Big Results: Murdock Trust Helps Install World-Class MicroscopeThe technology of the 21st Century is in the making at Portland State. A grant of $475,000 from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust has enabled the University to acquire a high-resolution digital scanning transmission electron microscope (TEM), complete with all of the accessories needed to build the Pacific Northwest's most advanced facility for nanoscale science and engineering research at Portland State. Many predict that nanoscience will be as significant in this century as antibiotics were in the last. The possible applications? For starters, how about orders-of-magnitude increases in computing power and solar cell efficiency? Or direct assembly of atoms and molecules to create "designer" materials with built-in environmental benignness. Or tiny devices that could transform medicine (a cure for cancer?), new metals for aircraft engines, miniaturized cell phones and computers that consume less power. Want to know how life on Earth originated? How life might look on other planets? Electron microscopy just might help answer those questions, too. The new microscope is the centerpiece of a state of the art microscopy facility, and advances the capabilities of PSU's multi-disciplinary materials research team, which includes faculty from the departments of physics, geology, chemistry, biology, environmental science, mechanical engineering and electrical/computer engineering. The TEM can view objects that are 60,000 times smaller in diameter than a human hair, and is the only instrument of the kind in a research or educational institution in the region. The equipment will also serve investigators from other institutions and industry working in the areas of atomic structure and chemical composition of materials. Created in 1975 by the will of the late Melvin J. "Jack" Murdock, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust's mission is to enrich the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest by providing grants to organizations that seek to strengthen the region's educational and cultural base in creative and sustainable way. Microscope specs:
|
 |
