Characterization Facilityat Liquid Crystal Institute of Kent State University

Introduction• The Liquid Crystal Institute (LCI) Characterization Facility, is an open access user facility serving the nearby academic and industrial communities and beyond.

Activities

Service• Serving 70+ academic groups (from Kent, Akron, Cleveland, Rootstown,

Columbus, Toledo, Cincinnati, OH and out-of-state) and industrial partners(Sherwin Williams, Lubrizol, ExxonMobil, Shire, KDI, Fischione, etc.).

Self-Use Training• Providing one-on-one and group training on most of the available instruments.• Popular training courses include basic AFM, basic SEM, basic TEM, cryo-TEM, TEM

specimen preparation of soft-matter materials, confocal laser scanningmicroscope, and high speed camera.

Other instruments include Zeta potential and particle size analyzer, FTIRspectrometer/microscope, rheometer, 2D polarimeter, chroma meter, Abberefractometer, differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), profilometer, polarized opticalmicroscope, etc.

Teaching and outreaching• Integrating lectures and lab-demos on TEM/SEM/AFM into 2 graduate and 1

undergraduate classes.

• Giving introductory/research seminars for academic institutions and localcompanies.

• Lab tour and demo available to public.• Promoting microscopy and characterization techniques.

• Working with academic societies/instrument manufacturers, and co-hostingmeetings, workshops and demos.

Fluid Dynamic Properties

• Providing a comprehensive series of instruments and analytical tools to characterize the following aspects of hard- and soft-matter materials and devices.

• The LCI Characterization Facility serves also as a center of hands-on training and education on advanced analytical techniques.

Atomic/nano-/micro-scale structure (TEM, SEM, SPM, Optical) Thermal and Phase Properties

Optical and Electro-optical Properties

Surface Properties

Mechanical and Rheological Properties …

Labs and Instruments

• Providing self-use, staff operation and collaboration for different users.

The Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) Lab features aversatile 200 kV microscope (FEI Tecnai G2 F20, 0.24 nm point-to-point resolution). Available techniques include cryo-TEM, high-resolution TEM, tomography, diffraction, energy-dispersive x-rayspectroscopy, energy-filtered TEM, electron energy-lossspectroscopy, etc.

The Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) Lab, integratingboth research and teaching functions, features 5 TT-AFMs made by AFMWorkshop. Users can study thesurface topography of their samples at a nanometer oreven sub-nanometer resolution.

The Scanning ElectronMicroscopy (SEM) and e-beamwriter Labs currently host a FEIQuanta450 environmental SEMwith Nabity NPGS EBL systemand an easy-to-use Hitachi S-2600N microscope.

• Location: the ground floor of the north wing of the Liquid Crystal and Materials Science Building.

High-speed camera:• Phantom v210 from Vision Research• Frame rates >2000fps in full frame

(1280 x 800)• 300,000 fps at a reduced frame size

AFM assembly Workshop (02/2012@LCI)

Microscopy Society of Northeastern Ohio Meeting (10/2013@LCI)

The Specimen preparation Lab hosts a series of specimen preparation instruments forsoft-matter materials. Available techniques include plunge freezing, high pressurefreezing, cryo-ultramicrotomy, and freeze fracture.

Bal-Tec BAF060freeze fracture

Leica EM Pact2 high pressure freezer

Leica UC7/FC7Cryo-ultramicrotome

FEI Mark IV VitrobotPlunge-freezer

Initialized MSNO Microscopy Summer School (microscopy of soft-matter materials) in2015: 60 attendees. Instructors: Min Gao (Kent State University, Cryo-techniques), AdamSmith (University of Akron, light microscopy), and Midori Hitomi (Cleveland Clinic,traditional biological EM)

Represented MSNO to initialize interaction withhigh school students and teachers: two microscopydemos at CTSC College Fair (in Cleveland, top: livedemo of a Table-Top AFM) and ACESS College Fair(in Akron, bottom: remote control of a FEIQuanta450 SEM)

Basic TEM training

Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope:

• LEXT OLS 3100 from Olympus• 408 nm LD source• 3D profile reconstruction, Resolution:

lateral - 200 nm; vertical - 10 nm.

FTIR Microscope:• Vertex 70 from Brucker• FTIR, MidIR, NearIR, Transmission,

Reflection, Microscope, Bench,Grazing Angle, ATR

Goniometer:• Model 250 from Rame-Hart• Temperature can be varies up to

315°C (600°F)• The resolution of the angle

measurement is 0.01° with anaccuracy of +/- 0.1°

Rheometer:HAAKE™ MARS™ II from Thermo Fisher Scientific

Zeta potential and particle size analyzer:

• ZetaPLUS from Brookhaven Instruments• Particle size (1 − 3,000 nm)• Zeta-potential (-220 to 220 mV)• Temperature varies from 10 to 70 °C

Version: 5/2016

2 n m2 n m

TEM image of a Pt nanoparticle with

resolved lattice spacing of 0.196 nm. A few application examples

2 nm

Website: http://www.lcinet.kent.edu/organization/facility/characterization/index.php Contact: mgao@kent.edu; lzou@kent.edu, 330-672-7999

Cryo-TEM of vesicles

Freeze fracture TEM

Nature Comm 4: 2635, 2013

Freeze fracture TEM image of twist-bend nematic CB7CB, revealing the ~8 nm pitch.

E-beam lithography

AFM image of a lithography pattern (30 x 30 microns).

CEMOVIS (cryo-electron microscopy of vitreous section)

of lyotropic liquid crystals

Environmental SEM: formation of nanoscale water droplets

Tomography: 3D structure of graphene and nanorods

2 n m2 n m

TEM image of a Pt nanoparticle with

resolved lattice spacing of 0.196 nm.

2 nm

AFM: 3D structure inside DVD disk

Environmental SEM: Ant

AFM: EBL pattern

E-SEM: pollen