Tuesday, August 12, 2008 Volume 8, Issue 3
MRI Annual Summer Picnic
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Tussey Mountain Lodge
The MRI Annual Summer Picnic is a chance for all MRI faculty, staff, students, reseachers, visiting scientists and their families to interact and socialize outside of the laboratory. In recent years, the picnic has been held at the Tussy Mountain Lodge, and has included fun activities such as par 3 golf, go-karts, volley ball, paddle boats, and horse shoes. Register for the 2008 Picnic
NOTE: Pre-registration is required. We cannot accommodate any walk-ins the day of the picnic. Registration deadline: August 13, 2008
Materials Camp Expands Knowledge of Renewable Energy
Twenty-two high school students from nine states arrived on campus during the week of July 6th – 11th to learn about renewable energy and the materials that make them work. The residential summer workshop is provided without charge for rising juniors and seniors with an interest in science through the ASM Materials Education Foundation.
Hosted by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, the hands-on workshop found students dissecting, examining, and creating their own batteries, photovoltaics, and fuel cells over the first three days. On Thursday, the students integrated their devices into systems to power toy cars, water pumps and electronics, or to generate hydrogen from water to power a fuel cell. On Friday, the students exhibited their research through poster presentations to patrons of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.
New Equipment and a New Philosophy Mark the Surface Analysis Group in MCL
In the past year the Surface Analysis and Molecular Spectroscopy Group in the Materials Characterization Lab (MCL) has introduced $500,000 worth of upgrades and new equipment to the user community at Penn State. With the support of faculty, these equipment improvements include a top-of-the-line Perkin-Elmer Lambda 950 UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer and an upgrade for the existing X-Ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS) that incorporates a variable temperature stage, along with about $100,000 in other smaller improvements.
“Historically, when people thought of surface analysis in the MCL, it was largely XPS,” says Josh Stapleton, the group leader. The tool set has expanded greatly over the past five years, as well as the number of staff with expertise on those tools and techniques. These include Vince Bojan with XPS and Auger Electron Spectroscopy, Joe Stitt on Raman Spectroscopy and Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM), Tad Daniel on Atomic Force Microscopy and XPS, and Josh Stapleton with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Ultraviolet-Visible Spectroscopy, and Optical Profilometry.
Interactions between staff and students have changed over the past few years as well, from a time when students were trained and left to run their own analysis, to a period when they submitted samples to the staff and the staff gave back reports, to the current model that contains elements of both. “With the instruments and the computer interface becoming easier to operate, we’re more interested in ensuring that students understand how a particular instrument generates data and how to interpret the results. That’s the sort of information they will be able to carry with them when they leave here rather than knowing how to operate our particular piece of equipment,” Stapleton says.
Grants and Contracts
Materials research accounted for more than $16.9 million in contracts and grants for the months May through July! The largest of these contracts and grants (those greater than $200K) are listed below, along with a link to the complete list of contracts and grants. These data are provided by OSP Strategic Information Management System.
Badding, John V; Gopalan, Venkatraman; Materials World Network: Creating Optoelectronic Materials and Devices Inside Microstructured Optical Fibers; National Science Foundation
Cross, Leslie E; New Flexoelectric Piezoelevtric Composites for Energy Harvesting; U.S. Department of the Navy
Dillon, Gregory P; Composite Tooling; Industry
Frecker, Mary I; Mockensturm, Eric M; Adair, James H; Muhlstein, Christopher L; Snyder, Alan J; Mathew, Abraham; Haluck, Randy S; Nanoparticulate Enabled Surgical Instruments; National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
Huang, Jun (Tony); Opto-Fluidic Hybrid System for Miniaturized Flow Cytometry; National Science Foundation
Johnson, Steven C; Powder Metal Initiative for Cameron, Elk, Jefferson & Clearfield Counties; Ben Franklin Technology Center of Central & Northern Pennsylvania, Inc.
Lowe, Tao L; Gardner, Thomas W; Hydrogels for Periocular Drug Delivery to Treat Diabetics Retinopathy - Year 2; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Mallouk, Thomas E; Crespi, Vincent H; MRSEC: Center for Molecular Nanofabrication and Devices; National Science Foundation
Martukanitz, Richard P; Acquisition of a 12 kW Fiber Laser for Laser Enhanced Fabrication and Repair of Naval Structures and Components; U.S. Department of the Navy
Mayer, Theresa S; Fonash, Stephen J; NNIN: National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network; Cornell University
Messing, Gary L; Synthesis / Processing and Densification of Transparent YAG and YAG Powder; Industry
Mueller, Karl T; Pantano, Carlo G; GOALI: Understantind Oxide-Polymer Interfaces to Enable Green Coating Technology; National Science Foundation
Pantano, Carlo G; Penn State Nanotechnology Research and Commercialization; COP: Department of Community and Economic Development
Rosenberg, Gerson; Pae, Walter E; Snyder, Alan J; Weiss, William J; Development of an Innovatively Suspended TESLA Pump LVAD; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Roy, Rustum; Cross, Leslie E; Breakall, James K; Slawecki, Tania M; Polarized Particle Beam Effects on Condensed Matter; Industry
Wang, Chao-Yang; Mechanism Study and MEA Design for PEFC Cold Start; Industry
Wang, Chao-Yang; Transient, Multiple Stack and Two-Phase Modeling of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells; Industry
Yetter, Richard A; A Unified Multiscale Approach for Nano-Engineered Energetic Materials; U.S. Department of the Army
Zhang, Qiming; Rahn, Christopher; Braille Display using EAP; National Eye Institute
For a complete list of the contracts and grants for May through July go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/awards.asp?awardperiod=0807
