Rice scientists build one-of-a-kind microscope
Researchers add optics, nanomanipulators and more to electron microscope

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

Thanks to a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant of almost $1 million, researchers from Rice University’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) are creating a first-of-its-kind microscope.

	JEFF FITLOW
	Graduate student Britt Lassiter is creating a first-of-its-kind microscope in Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics.

The heart of the new instrument is a scanning electron microscope (SEM), one of the mainstay tools of nanotechnology. Electron microscopes shoot beams of focused electrons at target samples, and the electrons that are scattered from the target are captured to reveal a detailed image.

LANP researchers are adding equipment to the SEM that will allow them to build nanostructures inside the SEM viewing chamber with electron beam-assisted deposition and etching, with e-beam lithography and with tiny nanomanipulators that can grab objects that are no larger than a strand of DNA.

The device will also have the capability of making optical measurements using "cathodoluminescence" technology. This technology allows the scientists to study how nanoparticles and nanostructures interact with light.

"No other nanotechnology instrument in the world has all of these combined capabilities," said LANP Director Naomi Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, professor of physics, professor of chemistry and professor of biomedical engineering. "The research that will be enabled by bringing all of these together is far greater than the sum of its parts."

Halas said LANP researchers will benefit by being able to carry out nanophotonics experiments from start to finish in the controlled environment of a vacuum chamber, where volatile materials and delicate devices can be protected from degradation.

"The combination of simultaneous high-resolution electron imaging with both optical and electrical characterization will provide us with unprecedented information about the physical processes that are at work in nanostructures," she said.

The grant for the new instrument was awarded under the NSF’s Major Research Infrastructure program.