Overview
The Nanotechnology Center at University of Arkansas at Little Rock (NCUALR) provides the analytical capabilities and scientific expertise essential to today’s science and engineering related to nanotechnology. Our center is composed of instruments with emphasis to the structural and chemical composition analysis of nanotechnology related materials.
The NCUALR is a collaborative research center open to researchers from universities, government laboratories, and industry by providing the opportunity to access major instruments in the areas of electron microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and optical spectroscopy. NCUALR is a unique resource in the state of Arkansas representing an outstanding opportunity to help solve your nanotechnology related materials problems. Click here to download a document describing our facilities, instrumentation, and capabilities (10mb).
Some of our state-of-the-art equipments include:
- JEOL SEM (JSM 7000F) & TEM (JEM 2100F) System
Electron microscopes are capable of imaging materials down to near atomic resolution (SEM) and atomic resolution (TEM) and can identify compositions of the samples. SEM can also write very fine features by electron beam (down to nanometer scale). Uses very high voltages electron beams (up to 40keV for SEM and 200keV for TEM) for imaging. The microscopes also came with the sample preparation equipments which modify the samples by thinning, coating with conductive layers, and cleaning prior to the microscope observations. - Bruker D8 Discovery X-Ray Diffraction System
X-ray diffraction system can characterize and identify the component, phase, grain sizes, atomic structures, etc. The X-ray we currently use is copper K-alpha radiation (0.154 nm, 8.03 keV). - Horiba Jobin Yvon, Inc (LabRam 300) Raman Spectroscopy System
Optical spectroscopy which can identify the types of molecular vibrations. The vibrational signals in turn can identify the chemical bonding in the samples. - Micromeritics Instruments ASAP 2020 Accelerated Surface Area and Prosimetry Analyzer BET System
By absorbing different types of gases, this instrument can measure the surface areas of powder samples. - Shimadzu Scientific (UV3600) UV-Vis-NIR Spectrometer System
Measures optical properties by passing light through or reflecting off materials yielding spectra of absorbed light which in turn can identify the chemical bonds.