And the winners are...
Congratulations to Morgan Miller and Joe Marting of Dr. Kendal Clark's group at the Central Methodist University in Missouri. They mastered the challenge of showing atoms with a NaioSTM in under 10 minutes!
Here's what they had to say about the experience:
Morgan Miller: “I found the experience incredibly educational, as well as satisfyingly challenging and rewarding once we achieved atomic resolution. The STM was something we had used a lot in my four years of school but I was never really comfortable using it on my own. After this challenge I finally feel comfortable using it, preparing it, and reading the data it generates. We definitely took multiple attempts over a few days. But it wasn’t to achieve atomic resolution in under the time limit it really was just to achieve it at all. We had never used it on our own so it took some practice of all the steps to finally get it right and then it took some luck being in a part of the college with a lot of background noise and vibration.”
Joe Martin: “It definitely did not work out the first time we tried. If we took our time and really focused we could get atomic resolution but struggled when it came to doing it in ten minutes. So when we finally got it, it was very rewarding. I’m glad we participated in the challenge.”
Dr. Kendal Clark: "I would just like to say that this was a very good experience for the students and gave me a very good opportunity to allow them the operate the STM on their own. I believe the key they found to achieving atomic resolution was practicing the steps to prepare the sample and make the tip. Once they had that down they were able to get the image very quickly. It just shows the ease of use of the Nanosurf STM and the power of the machine. The competition was a great motivator for the students and really encouraged them keep trying until they succeeded.
Thank you for putting on the competition and for the affordable and very user friendly product. Our department has both and STM and AFM from Nanosurf and both have proven to be wonderful products."
