MRI: Acquisition of a UV-visible-near IR microspectrophotometer

非技术摘要：理解和利用材料的显著性能，无论是用于医学、能源还是信息技术，都需要能够准确探测材料结构和性能的仪器。随着技术的进步和材料尺寸的减小，用于与材料交互和研究材料的工具也必须微型化。分光计是利用光来探测材料的仪器，几乎是材料研究的每个领域的基本工具，但大多数分光计发出的光束是毫米宽，而不是微米。该项目通过购置显微分光光度计，满足区域和国家对小型化(微型)光束的先进仪器的需求。这种仪器提供了前所未有的能力，可以将光聚焦到材料的微观(不到一微米)区域，并对其结构和性能进行定量分析。该仪器融合了五种传统的不同测量技术，可以对微结构和纳米结构材料的物理和化学性质产生丰富的见解。这一新的研究能力使研究能够应用于多个研究领域，包括3D打印、太阳能电池和癌症诊断。高中、本科生和研究生的教育是通过动手培训和使用显微分光光度计来推进的。该仪器将成为学生探索材料属性、表面和光与物质相互作用的课程和培训活动的焦点。仪器位于共享仪器设施中，具有提供广泛访问的良好记录，使教育和研究活动能够对地区大学、政府、非营利性用户和行业产生积极影响。技术概述：纳米材料、生物材料及其复合材料的研究进展对传统的基于光的光谱仪提出了越来越高的需求--特别是那些缺乏解决纳米到微米级结构、成分和性能变化所需的聚焦光学的仪器。本项目获得的主要研究仪器是显微分光光度计，它利用高倍显微镜的放大光学元件，将传统的五种光谱组合在一个平台上。该仪器可进行透射式、反射式、荧光式、偏振式和拉曼式光谱分析，使每种技术都能串联探测单一材料的单个区域。通过使用石英光学器件，可用光谱从300 nm扩展到2100 nm，这为探索太阳能电池和光纤通信中感兴趣的小带隙材料或探索细胞诊断中的无标签检测创造了新的机会。该计划的主要目标是在教堂山分析和纳米加工实验室的一个共享仪器设施中建立一个显微分光光度计，利用该仪器在电子和光子材料、软物质和生物材料领域的能力，并将该仪器用作培养来自北卡罗来纳大学教堂山和邻近机构的不同学生的平台。

Non-technical summary: Understanding and harnessing the remarkable properties of materials, whether for medicine, energy, or information technology, requires instruments that can accurately probe a material's structure and properties. As technologies advance and materials reduce in size, the tools used to interact with and study materials must also miniaturize. Spectrophotometers, instruments that employ light to probe materials, are essential tools in virtually every area of materials research, and yet the light beams that are emitted from most spectrophotometers are millimeters across rather than micrometers. This project addresses regional and national needs for advanced instrumentation with miniaturized (micro) light beams via the acquisition of a microspectrophotometer. This instrument provides unprecedented capabilities for focusing light into microscopic (less than one micrometer) regions of a material and quantitatively analyzing its structure and properties. This instrument merges five traditionally distinct measurement techniques to yield rich insight into the physical and chemical properties of microstructured and nanostructured materials. This new research capability enables studies with applications that span across multiple areas of research, including 3-D printing, solar cells, and cancer diagnostics. Education of high school, undergraduate and graduate students is advanced through hands-on training and access to the microspectrophotometer. The instrument will be a focal point for classes and training activities for students that explore material properties, surfaces, and light-matter interaction. The location of the instrument in a shared instrument facility with a strong track record of providing broad access enables educational and research activities that positively impact regional universities, government, non-profit users, and industry.Technical summary: Advancements in research on nanomaterials, biological materials, and their composites are placing increased demands on traditional light-based spectroscopies?especially those that lack the focusing optics needed to resolve nano-to-micrometer scale variations in structure, composition, and properties. The major research instrumention acquired in this project a microspectrophotometer, which combines five traditional spectroscopies into a single platform by using the magnifying optics of a high-powered microscope. The instrument performs transmission, reflection, fluorescence, polarization, and Raman spectroscopies, enabling a single region of a single material to be probed in series by each technique. By employing quartz optics, the usable spectrum extends from 300 nm to 2100 nm, which creates new opportunities to explore small band-gap materials such as those of interest in solar cells and fiber optic communications or to explore label-free detection in cellular diagnostics. The principal objectives of this program are to establish a microspectrophotometer in a shared instrumentation facility in the Chapel Hill Analytical and Nanofabrication Laboratory, to exploit the instrument's capabilities in the fields of electronic and photonic materials, soft matter, and biomaterials, and to use the instrument as a platform for educating a diverse body of students from UNC Chapel Hill and neighboring institutions.