Baskin wins funding for scanning electron microscope

Biology professor Tobias Baskin recently received a three-year, $511,143 National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation award through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to acquire a state-of-the-art, high-resolution scanning electron microscope.

The microscope will serve life and materials sciences researchers at the Five Colleges. Because the new microscope is robust and equipped with a remote viewing interface, it will also be useful in teaching.

Baskin says the modern scanning electron microscope has been transformed in recent years into an instrument capable of magnification and resolution comparable to that of a transmission electron microscope, but it accomplishes this without requiring samples to be sliced or sectioned. It can not only image the sample surface to reveal topography, but the new microscope can determine which elements are present in the structure and at what concentration, Baskin says. Such a tool is fast becoming indispensable to researchers investigating structure at the smallest levels.

For example, chemists and polymer scientists are using high-resolution scanning electron microscopes to maniupulate smaller components than ever before to build devices such as high-performance photovoltaic cells. And biologists use such microscopes to study how plant cell walls help guide cell development. The new microscope is expected to not only lead to new scientific discoveries but to enrich the student research experience.

November 20, 2009.

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