Dr. Hee Joon Jung joins NUANCE's EPIC facility

Dr. Reiner Bleher attended the Midwest Microscopy and Microanalysis Society meeting, where he presented a talk on Cryo-Electron Microscopy techniques.

Dr. Xinqi Chen attended the American Vacuum Society 63rd International Symposium and Exhibition held in Nashville, TN, where he spoke with prominent industry scientists and attended surface science and 2D material technical sessions

On Tuesday, November 1, NUANCE hosted a workshop with Middleton Spectral Vision and Bruker AXIS, entitled “Hyperspectral Imaging Techniques for Elemental and Molecular Applications.”

Eric Miller, Microscopy & Imaging Specialist the EPIC facility, explains how to maximize resolution in the SEM.

The finalists of the 2016 NUANCE Center Image Contest talk about their research, their submissions, and the NUANCE Center facilities.

Dr. Jinsong Wu recently attended the 9th International Conference on Advanced Lithium Batteries for Automobile Application (ABAA-9) in Huzhou, China. Dr. Wu displayed his own research using In Situ TEM technology at NUANCE's EPIC facility, and explored avenues of collaboration with international researchers and industry representatives.

Dr. Yuan Li, postdoctoral fellow at the NUANCE Keck-II Facility, has co-authored an article with a group of Northwestern scientists, including Keck-II Facility Manager Xinqi Chen and NUANCE director Vinayak Dravid. The paper was published in the ACS journal Nano Letters.

NUANCE Fest, NUANCE’s annual open house, was once again a great success! On October 19, new graduate students were offered a tour of the NUANCE facilities, followed by a reception for students, faculty, and staff.

The NUANCE Center Image Gallery Reception was held on October 5. Eleven finalists displayed their work, all created with NUANCE equipment, and Dr. Kai He was announced as the contest winner!

Dr. Kim is a postdoctoral fellow for the NUANCE Center, EPIC facility and Dr. Musumeci is a postdoctoral fellow for the NUANCE Center, SPID facility.

The winning images from the summer image gallery contest will be displayed for 6 months in our NUANCE Center gallery, which is located in Cook Hall, 1st floor and Silverman Hall, 1st floor.

The NUANCE Center hosted a Raman/AFM-Raman/TERS Workshop in collaboration with HORIBA Scientific and AIST-NT on Thursday, September 27.

The Office for Research held its 7th annual Core Facilities Colloquium and Awards Luncheon. The NUANCE center received a Gold Star Award, bestowed on facilities operating at the top level (top 10%) for four years or more.

On September 21, NUANCE staff, students, and affiliates gathered for the NUANCE Center Monthly Coffee hour, organized this month by Ben Myers.

Dr. Jinsong Wu received a Professional Technical  Staff Award at the M&M 2016 Conference in Columbus, OH. Congratulations Dr. Wu!

NUANCE congratulates NUFAB's Ying Jia on the birth of her beautiful baby girl, Evelyn.

Lunch and learn seminar by ZEISS!

The August 17 NUANCE Center Coffee Hour was hosted by Dr. Kai He, TEM facility manager for the NUANCE - Electron Probe Instrumentation Center (EPIC).

The NUANCE Center will receive the Gold Star Award at the Office for Research's 7th annual core facility awards, September 23.

Medill graduate students tour the SHyNE facilities at NUANCE and NUCAPT

A research team in Northwestern University's NUANCE Center is studying the sodium-ion battery and how it compares against the lithium-ion battery.

On Wednesday, a group of students from SQ Scholar, a scholarship program for promising middle and high school students from Chicago, took a tour of the NUANCE facility to learn about nanoscience.

There is growing interest in determining whether consumers can be exposed to nanoparticles during the lifecycles of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs). This study employs a model PNC system based on luminescent semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots) dispersed in low density polyethylene, and exposes these materials to liquid media under conditions intended to accelerate the release kinetics.

Northwestern professor, Chad A. Mirkin and his team are developing a tool to rapidly test millions, even billions or more different nanoparticles at one time. “Our tool will enable researchers to pick the winner much faster than conventional methods," said Mirkin. "We have the ultimate discovery tool."

Atsushi Muto held a seminar and demo session, Tuesday and Wednesday to highlight the imaging performance and capabilities of the Hitachi SU 8030 SEM, the highest performance scanning electron microscope in the EPIC facility.

NUANCE Center staff members, Dr. Xinqi Chen and Dr. Vinayak Dravid, co-authored a paper, "From ScOOH to Sc2O3: Phase Control, Luminescent Properties, and Applications," which has been published by the weekly Advanced Materials journal. Dr. Chen is the Keck Interdisciplinary Surface Science (Keck-II) Center facility manager, and Dr. Dravid is the director of the NUANCE Center.

The monthly ACS Nano journal published SHyNE Resource Director of Operations Benjamin Myers' work on "Size-Selective Nanoparticle Assembly on Substrates by DNA Density Patterning." In addition to his work for the SHyNE Resource, Myers is a part-time Ph.D. student in the VPD Group.

The NUANCE Center had the pleasure of hosting Raith sales manager Joseph Klingfus and Raith senior product manager Dr. Sven Bauerdick yesterday. Dr. Bauerdick presented on “Advanced FIB Nanofabrication: New Ion Species and Unique Patterning Strategies.” Demo sessions on the Raith instruments were held in the afternoon.

This month’s NUANCE Center Coffee Hour was hosted by Keck Interdisciplinary Surface Science (Keck-II) Center facility manager Dr. Xinqi Chen in the Cook Hall first floor atrium. About 65 people attended the coffee hour and talked to Dr. Chen about XPS, SIMS, and other Keck-II facilities.

On May 25, SHyNE Resource had their second Spotlight event, featuring the High Performance Bioscope Resolve Life Science Imaging System.

Dr. Reiner Bleher hosted the 2016 CryoSEM workshop in hopes that focusing on one BioCryo method would help him reach a niche audience. From what he learned in a Kellogg Executive Education course, he anticipated the event would attract more audience members if he focused on one rather than a broad array of techniques. The workshop reached near maximum capacity at about 60 people.

Congratulations to Dr. Jinsong Wu on his recent promotion to associate research professor! Dr. Wu is the TEM facility manager for the NUANCE Center/EPIC Facility.

The NUANCE Center is happy to announce the arrival of the FEI Quanta FEG 650, which replaced the older model FEI Quanta FEG 600. The FEI Quanta FEG 650 is fully operational and ready for use. If interested in using the instrument, please contact SEM manager Karl Hagglund (karl.hagglund@northwestern.edu).

The Journal of Materials Chemistry A recognized and published NUANCE staff members Dr. Qianqian Li, Dr. Jinsong Wu, Dr. Junming Xu and Dr. Vinayak Dravid's work on "Synergistic Sodiation of Cobalt Oxide Nanoparticles and Conductive Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) for Sodium-ion Battery."

Dr. Yuan Li, Dr. Jinsong Wu, Dr. Qianqian Li and graduate student Fernando Castro attended the 2016 Materials Research Society (MRS) spring meeting in Phoenix, AZ, from March 28 to April 1.

The NUANCE Center loves inspiring young minds and takes pride in the part it plays in “Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work Day.” This year, about 30 students from elementary to middle school visited the NUANCE Center on Thurs., April 28, and learned about electron microscopes.

The Wavelength Dispersive Spectroscopy (WDS) System is now open and available for use and training.

Thank you to everyone who attended the Scanning Probe Microscopy Short Courses and Training Workshop from April 21 to 22. It was a pleasure to sponsor this event with Bruker and host so many students, postdoctoral fellows, professors, researchers and science technical staff. A huge thank you also to our engaging speakers and presenters!

On Wednesday, April 20, Dr. Hee Joon Jung from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory gave a presentation on "TEM Studies on Energy Conversion Materials" in the MSE Conference Room.

The NUANCE Center hosted a presentation by Dr. Tobias Gokus and demos with the nano-FTIR the week of April 11

Out of over 300 applicants, NUANCE Center’s EPIC Facility TEM manager Jinsong Wu was chosen as one of the few to win the 2016 M&M Professional Technical Staff Award for his paper, “Atomic Resolution in-situ TEM Studies of Lithium Electrochemistry in Co3O4-Carbon Nanotube Nanocomposite.”

Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s CryoSEM Workshop! We were honored to have presentations by the NUANCE Center’s BioCryo facility manager and research assistant professor Reiner Bleher, associate professor Derk Joester, postdoctoral fellow Irene Chang, and Mager Scientific technical sales representative Mike Boykin as well as BioCryo demonstrations by research technologist Eric Roth in the afternoon.

50 Freshmen from Glenbrook South High School visited Northwestern University on Friday, March 4, 2016. They learned about Large-scale/"Mega" Engineering, and Nano/Molecular Engineering

"Synthesis of borophenes: Anisotropic, two-dimensional boron polymorphs" Andrew J. Mannix, Xiang-Feng Zhou, Brian Kiraly, Joshua D. Wood, Diego Alducin, Benjamin D. Myers, Xiaolong Liu, Brandon L. Fisher, Ulises Santiago, Jeffrey R. Guest, Miguel Jose Yacaman, Arturo Ponce, Artem R. Oganov, Mark C. Hersam, Nathan P. Guisinger Science 18 Dec 2015: Vol. 350, Issue 6267, pp. 1513-1516

Prof. Chad Mirkin gave a very interesting presentation on the TERA-Fab E- and M-Series, it's capabilities and benefits. This was followed by a demonstration of the instrument by Andrey Ivankin.

Lauren Sturdy hosted students from Salem Christian School in Chicago, who were here on a science field trip. The purpose was to introduce them to a college environment and show them how exciting science can be!

The NUANCE Center hosted a reception for the winners of the Fall 2015 image gallery contest on January 11, 2016. Many people came to see the images and to learn about the science behind each image!

Karl is the new SEM Facility Manager for the NUANCE EPIC Facility!