| NSF Org: |
DMR Division Of Materials Research |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | February 22, 2010 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 13, 2012 |
| Award Number: | 0959105 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Charles E. Bouldin
DMR Division Of Materials Research MPS Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
| Start Date: | March 1, 2010 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2013 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $1,000,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $1,000,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| ARRA Amount: | $1,000,000.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
730 HARDING BLVD BATON ROUGE LA US 70807-5304 (225)771-2809 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
730 HARDING BLVD BATON ROUGE LA US 70807-5304 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Major Research Instrumentation |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.049 |
ABSTRACT
0959105
Walker
Southern University
Technical Summary:
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
In recent years, conventional Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) has evolved into an exquisite technique capable of providing direct information on the structure of materials not adequately handled by x-ray analysis or, more important, on local structure rather than the average structure determined by x-ray or neutron diffraction analysis. With the advent of high-resolution TEM, techniques now exist to probe the local structure of complex systems. TEM has become an important research tool in the life, physical, material, and environmental sciences. It is especially essential to the study of complex systems such as tissue, polymers, gels, multi metal oxides, etc. Accordingly, this award is for the acquisition of a high-resolution TEM instrument to enhance the TEM capabilities, to allow us to use these advance techniques to solve specific research problems, and to integrate our research with education and student training at Southern University and A & M College, the largest Historical Black College/University (HBCU) and research undergraduate institution (RUI).
Layman Summary:
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The goal of the 200 kV TEM instrument is to strengthen and increase research, research education, and training of students from Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering at Southern University. Additionally, this instrument will afford us high-resolution TEM capabilities and provide a user friendly and efficient TEM instrument for routine and state-of-the-art high-resolution TEM. There are two specific objectives: The first objective is to enrich and enhance research with Transmission Electron Microscopy an indispensable research tool, and the second objective is to provide opportunities for students to become familiar and participate in TEM research.
The TEM facility will yield new insights by providing researchers at Southern University at Baton Rouge (SUBR) with a new state-of-the-art analytical tool that will immeasurably enhance the quality of their research. The TEM facility will foster a research atmosphere complimentary to undergraduate teaching, while continuing SUBR's mission to combine research and teaching in a highly productive manner for the training and development of young, highly talented engineers and scientists of the future. The TEM facility will play an important role in the training of minority scientists who will be better prepared to become future materials scientists, chemists, physicists, and/or engineers. In particular, this project will also have a significant impact on faculty and students at SUBR by exposing them to Transmission Electron Microscopy related research, a field where the number of minority students is very scarce. The high-resolution TEM at SUBR will catalyze the students' interest and encourage them to pursue graduate studies in engineering and the sciences.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The development of the TEM facility will yield new insights by providing researchers at Southern University at Baton Rouge (SUBR) with a new state-of-the-art analytical tool that will immeasurably enhance the quality of their research. The TEM facility will foster a research atmosphere complimentary to undergraduate teaching, while continuing SUBR’s mission to combine research and teaching in a highly productive manner for the training and development of young, highly talented engineers and scientists of the future. The TEM facility will play an important role in the training of minority scientists who will be better prepared to become future materials scientists, chemists, physicists, and/or engineers. In particular, this project will also have a significant impact on faculty and students at SUBR by exposing them to Transmission Electron Microscopy related research, a field where the number of minority students is very scarce. The acquisition of a high-resolution TEM at SUBR will catalyze the students’ interest and encourage them to pursue graduate studies in engineering and the sciences.
The acquisition of a modern Transmission Electron Microscope will have broader impacts on research, research productivity and capabilities, and the education in Engineering and the Sciences at Southern University and A & M College. With the acquisition of a modern TEM, access to this instrumentation will provide researchers at Southern University with the fundamental insights into their research projects and will immeasurably enhance the quality of their research. Students will be given the opportunity to have hands-on experience by the acquisition of this instrumentation. Not only will this exposure benefit the students in the undergraduate lecture and laboratory courses, it will give them a more meaningful undergraduate research experience. Students will be able to use this powerful tool in the elucidation of local structure. Ultimately, this will build the much-needed scientific curiosity that will encourage the students to expand their scientific knowledge.
Long-term goals include developing partnerships with industry to foster student participation in industrial internships that require the use of TEM for local structure characterization. Other groups within the university that will use the instrumentation include: ACS SEED, Louisiana Alliance for Minority Participation, Timbuktu Academy, Summer REU programs, and the ACE Implementation project.
Last Modified: 02/04/2014
Modified by: Edwin Walker
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