How Tech Ticks
Matter of
SCALE BY JESSE TUEL
In Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center, on a building site selected for its seismic passiveness, in a cubed room whose temperature won’t deviate more than a 10th of a degree, behind ceiling-high curtains that block out the most benign air flow, a multimilliondollar transmission electron microscope (TEM) sees individual atoms that are much less than one nanometer in size. (A human hair is 80,000 nanometers wide.) Such precision requires the utmost stillness. Acquired about five years ago, the microscope was first housed in Derring Hall. The instrument is so sensitive that researchers could tell if someone was walking in the building or if a car was being driven in the parking lot. The TEM is now housed in the Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory (NCFL), specifically designed for such delicate devices. “If Mitsu [Murayama, an associate professor of materials science] is taking an image at atomic resolution, we don’t even talk in this room,” said University Distinguished Professor of Geosciences Michael Hochella Jr. (geological sciences ’75, M.S. ’77).
Magnified 300,000 times A mineral called schwertmannite, magnified 6,000 times
Magnified 10,000 times
Magnified 275,000 times *Magnification numbers are estimated PHOTOS BY JIM STROUP; MICROSCOPIC IMAGES COURTESY OF MITSU MURAYAMA
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