News Brief: Researchers across the state assisted by nanoscience facilities

According to a University press release, TEM-XRD is a UNM facility that works primarily in nanoscience, a field that studies extremely small structures and materials usually less than 100 nanometers in size, down to the atomic scale.

To be able to see things on this scale, researchers need extremely sensitive equipment, according to the release, which can be found at UNM’s Department of Earth and Planetary Science. The instruments housed there help researchers answer questions and gain knowledge about structures invisible to the naked eye.

“We are unique in New Mexico in being the only academic institution that has this sort of facility,” said Adrian Brearley, professor of earth and planetary science and director of the TEM-XRD facility. “These techniques are applicable in everything from earth, environmental and planetary sciences, materials science, particularly high technology materials, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, biological sciences, and much more.”

According to the release, the facility houses two main types of instrumentation — TEM, or Transmission Electron Microscopy, and XRD, or X-Ray Diffraction. These tools allow researchers to analyze materials at an atomic level and generate information about the structure, chemistry, bonding and behavior of a variety of crystalline, solid materials.

The information provided by the equipment is extremely useful for researchers in almost every scientific field and has wide-reaching implications to public health and the development of new technologies, according to the release.

The release states that the center has roughly 250 unique users every year from all over campus, including South and Main campuses, the Health Sciences Center, and from elsewhere across the state. The lab, first established in 1984, has continued to grow its capacity for research ever since.

There are currently six different instruments being used at the TEM-XRD facility, equipment that represents roughly $6 million worth of capital to the University, according to the release.

Matthew Reisen is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @MrMojoReisen.