Purchase of a Transmission Electron Microscope: a Regional Cyber-User Facility for Materials Chemistry and the Northern Plains Undergraduate Research Center

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With support from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities: Multiuser program (CRIF:MU), the Department of Chemistry at the University of South Dakota will acquire a Cyber-enabled Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). The microscope will be used by researchers at the University of South Dakota, and other institutions in the Great Plains region, including the members of the Northern Plains Undergraduate Research Center. The projects that acquisition of this instrumentation will enable include: (1) study of the surface sensitization of Ln-doped lanthanum trifluoride nanoparticles; (2) investigation of the potential for metal-surface enhancement of upconversion luminescence from Lanthanide-doped nanoparticles; (3) TEM studies of noble metal containing titanium dioxide aerogels; (4) the synthesis of well-defined nanocrystals for catalysis; (5) exploration of the relationship between morphology of carbonaceous materials and their catalytic activity toward alkylation, benzylic oxidation and phtooxidation; and (6) study of the properties and self-assembly of nanocomposites for surface enhanced Raman scattering in sensing applications. The microscope will be used by large numbers of undergraduate and graduate students, both in instructional settings as well as in research. Access to the instrument will be widened, via cyber-enabling and other means, to student researchers in the Great Plains region, including students at Sinte Gleska University. Transmission electron microscopes, like the one purchased under this award, allow chemists to see atomic-level details of materials that they make in their laboratories. This level of detail is especially needed when probing the chemical properties of nanoscale materials, where chemical heterogeneity changes at precisely these length scales. Without this level of detail, the progress towards new kinds of nanoscale materials will be made much more slowly. The infrastructure made available with this grant will be used in teaching and training a broad range of young scientists, including significant numbers of Native American scientists, in important, cutting-edge, experimental methods.