Students get to use the SPM on their own. A new power mac and a quality color printer have been purchased to assist the students in analyzing their data and printing their results. The students have an option to use SPM in their special topic lab. This lab is intended to give the students the knowledge to be able to use SPM in their senior design project. The senior design project is an opportunity for seniors to work with industrial representatives to solve industrial problems.
Students work in a variety of areas including metallurgy, ceramics, polymers, and microelectronics.
AFM and STM are both available for MTE seniors to use. Students working in metallurgy can use STM or AFM to study the grain size resulting from different processing techniques. Students working in microelectronics can study gate metrology to determine optimal processing techniques. Students working in polymers can study the microstructure of crystallized polymers. Students working in ceramics can study resultant microstructure changes of alumina during heat treatments and age hardening methods.