Technical Support for a Dual Beam Focused Ion Milling System for TEM Foil Preparation + 3D Chemical Analysis

0521896该奖项部分资助一名高级全职技术人员操作和维护一台聚焦离子束/扫描电子显微镜仪器。这一职位对于启动为该仪器计划的国家地球物理支助计划至关重要。购买成本超过100万美元的FIB/SEM已被购买，用于加州大学河滨分校的纳米材料研究。这位技术人员的提供将使加州大学河滨分校和美国国家科学基金会通过地球科学矿物性研究联盟(COMPRES)共享使用该仪器，使COMPRES机构的成员能够使用FIB/SEM仪器，以“邮购”方式准备用于透射电子显微镜(TEM)的样品。使用费将向所有用户收取，但这名技术人员的NSF支持将大大支付用户在地质/地球物理方面的成本。这一概念得到了COMPRES的认可，COMPRES为该计划的年度费用提供了额外的资金。尽管自20世纪60年代末离子轰击稀释剂问世以来，通过使用透射电子显微镜在地质和地球物理(特别是矿物和岩石物理)方面取得了许多进展，但由于样品制备的巨大难度和时间，透射电子显微镜的应用受到了很大的限制。FIB/SEM仪器的发展现在可以从基本上任何无机材料和至少一些有机材料(聚合物)的抛光表面上的精确位置制备透射电子显微镜样品(“箔”)。在地球科学所有处理固体的分支中广泛使用这种仪器所面临的根本问题是，该仪器的成本非常高，每年的维护成本也同样高，而且需要一名训练有素的专门技术人员来操作它。在这位技术人员的资助下建立的合作伙伴关系现在将绕过这些问题，导致成本比目前的商业可获得性低得多。据估计，当该计划完全投入使用时，价格将达到100美元/箔。

0521896GreenThis award partially funds a high-level full-time technician to operate and maintain a Focused Ion Beam / Scanning Electron Microscope instrument. This position is essential for enabling the national geophysics support program planned for this instrument. The FIB/SEM, with purchase cost greater than $1M, has been purchased for nanomaterials research on the UC Riverside campus. Provision of this technician will enable shared use of the instrument as a "partnership" between UC Riverside and the NSF via the COnsortium for Mineral Properties Research in Earth Sciences (COMPRES) to provide access for members of COMPRES institutions to a FIB/SEM instrument for "mail-order" specimen preparation for transmission electron microscopy (TEM). User fees will be charged to all users but the NSF support of this technician will significantly defray costs to users in geology/geophysics. This concept has been endorsed by COMPRES, which has granted additional funds toward the yearly cost of the program. Although many advances in geology and geophysics (and in particular in mineral and rock physics) have been achieved through use of TEM since development of the ion-bombardment thinner in the late 1960s, application of TEM has been significantly constrained by the great difficulty and time involved in specimen preparation. Development of the FIB/SEM instrument now allows preparation of TEM specimens ("foils") from precisely located sites on polished surfaces of essentially any inorganic material and at least some organic materials (polymers). The fundamental problem facing wide-spread use of such instrumentation in all branches of the Earth Sciences that deal with solids has been the very high cost of the instrument, its similarly high annual maintenance costs, and the need for a highly-trained, dedicated technician to operate it. The partnership being established with the funding of this technician will now circumvent these problems, leading to a much lower cost than current commercial availability. It is estimated that a price of ~$100/foil will be attainable when the program is fully operational.