The Nanotechnology project room will be used to do experiments related to applications concerning nanoscale phenomena. The room will house a research grade atomic force microscope, an instrument capable of atomic scale resolution, recently acquired as part of an NSF grant. For advanced (junior and senior) level courses and senior projects, where the relatively small number of students permits individual student access and operation of the instrument, experiments will be performed in the project room. For the higher enrollment introductory physics courses, the instrument will be wheeled into the adjoining freshmen laboratory room and nanotech experiments will consist of demonstration oriented activities so that all the students in the class can simultaneous view the microscope in operation and record data from the computer screen.
The instrument has so far been used in a variety of freshman, sophomore and senior level physics courses. However, for the introductory courses, for each nanoscale lab activity, the instrument was transported back and forth between its present home in Building 8 to the laboratories Building 3. In addition, at its present location in Building 8, the room is shared lab space which does not allow for more than one or two students near the microscope. The new dedicated project room in Building 3 will allow better student access to the instrument and facilitate easier transport to the adjacent freshman laboratory in addition to other laboratories in that building.
