The National Center for Earth and Environmental Science (NanoEarth) hosted 21 11th and 12th graders and two teachers from the Roanoke Valley Governor’s School (RVGS). Students spent the day touring various labs on Virginia Tech campus. This included James Westwood, Ph.D.’s parasitic plants lab, Eva Colla’kova, Ph.D.’s plant metabolism lab, and the Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory (NCFL).

Students visited four NCFL labs in three quick rotations. VT Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology Laboratory (VT SuN) Director, Weinan Leng, Ph.D. welcomed the group and discussed the capabilities of the X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). NCFL Instrument Specialist, Steve McCartney, gave a demo on the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) of Bi/Sn samples. NanoEarth Instrument Specialist, Charis Horn, Ph.D., gave an overview of the Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and let the students drive around the gold nanoparticle samples looking at lattice fringes. NCFL Focused Ion Beam (FIB) and SEM Laboratory Manager, Jarret Wright, walked the groups through FIB’s various abilities and its importance to nanotechnology research.

SEM of B-Sn solder
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) image of a Tin (Sn) and Bismuth (Bi) sample that the Roanoke Valley Governor's School students explored.
EDS of B-Sn solder
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) image of the breakdown of Tin (Sn) and Bismuth (Bi) in a sample that the Roanoke Valley Governor's School students explored.

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