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EMU Newsletter September/October 2009 | 1
EMUNewsletter September/October 2009
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
Fidel Castro, Jr. Visits the EMU • Feedback on the Survey • News from the
Laboratories • Talented Students Display Their Talents for Microscopy •
Bits ’n Pieces
Fidel Castro, Jr. Visits to Talk Science
On Tuesday 20 October 2009, Dr Fidel Castro
Díaz-Balart, Scientific Advisor of the State
Council of Cuba, visited the EMU as part of
a Cuban delegation’s visit to the University of
Sydney. As his name suggests, Dr Castro is
the eldest son of Fidel Castro, the former prime
minister and later president of Cuba for decades.
He and the rest of the Cuban delegation were
here to examine Australia’s research in the fields
of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and nuclear
science, looking for opportunities for collabora-
tion and exchange of ideas.
As part of his visit to Sydney, Dr Castro was eager
to see the facilities and hear about the research
done in, and by, the EMU. His curiosity was
rewarded with a detailed tour of the some of the
unit’s major instruments and laboratories, led by
EMU Director Prof. Simon Ringer. This was fol-
lowed by a discussion of what the unit does, how
it works, and its leadership role as headquarters
of the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis
Research Facility (AMMRF). As a scientific advisor,
Dr Castro was particularly interested to learn about
the innovative mechanisms, such as NCRIS, the
federal government has put in place in recent years
to fund major research infrastructure in Australia.
Dr Fidel Castro Diaz-Balarat inspecting the unit’s atom probe instruments.
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During the visit to Sydney, the delegation also
spent time with DVC (International) Prof. John
Hearn and DVC (Research) Prof. Jill Trewhella.
The visit was part of a program coordinated by
the Commonwealth Government’s Department
of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.
Dr Castro has an extensive scientific and
research background. He received a masters
in nuclear physics and a PhD in physical-
mathematical sciences from Russian institutions
during the 1970s, and did postdoctoral research
in nuclear-power generation at the I. V. Kurchatov
Atomic Energy lnstitute in Moscow. In later years,
he also undertook a masters in strategic planning
and higher management and he was awarded
a doctor of sciences in 2000. Dr Castro has
received several prizes and distinctions during his
career and is a member of the Cuban Academy of
Sciences and the Ibero-Latin American Associa-
tion of Technological Innovation, among others.
He has more than 150 scientific publications and
10 books.
Feedback on the Survey
Thank you to all those who participated in our
annual survey; not only does this help us meet
our government requirements, but it also allows
us to see how we can improve. We appreciate
all the wonderful comments about our facility
and support, but we also recognise there’s
always room for improvement. A lot of issues
raised have aligned with areas where we are
already working towards solutions.
The most common comments we received were
about the availability of equipment and issues
with our booking system. We are currently
trialling a new booking system that we hope
will give us many of the features that everyone
wants, such as easily seeing machine availability
and allowing us to quickly communicate with
users about particular machines.
We also acknowledge that time slots are not
always being effectively used on equipment. To
help let more users work on the equipment more
Dr Castro and his team following PhD student Chris Wong’s demonstration on the Skyscan MicroCT.
More information:
Dr Kyle Ratinac
Research Development Manager
Tel. 02 9351 4513
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efficiently, we have put the following regulations
in place: all TEMs, SEMs, and busy confocals
are on a maximum three-hour-session per day
regime between 9.00am and 5.00pm. After
hours, the sessions are not limited. Please note
that users will no longer be allowed to start at
10.00am.
The duty microscopist will be checking at the
beginning of the session times to see if users
are on the machines they booked. If they are
not, they will be allowed 20 minutes’ grace
before their session is given away. After that
20-minute period, the duty microscopist will
contact the section managers who, in turn,
will phone another user that needs to get time
on a particular machine. Please let the section
managers know if you wish to be put on a
waiting list for a particular machine. Otherwise,
a general message will be broadcast to all users
of the equipment to allow the slot to be used.
If users are having trouble getting time on
machines, please contact the sections managers:
David Mitchell for TEM, Peter Hines for SEM, Errin
Johnson for light/optical microscopes, Dennis
More information:
Ellie Kable
Laboratory Manager
Tel. 02 9351 7566
Dwarte for microCT, Alex La Fontaine for atom
probe or SPM and Minh Huynh for cell culture or
biomolecular specimen preparation. Of course,
there will be occasions where experiments need
to have longer sessions, and such sessions can be
arranged by discussion and arrangement with the
section managers. You are also free to discuss any
of these problems with me. Often a solution can
be found quite quickly, so please don’t wait a few
weeks for a booking to free up. Ultimately, the best
solution is to become a Cat3 (Category 3) user,
which means you can work 24/7. At the moment,
we don’t seem to have any problem with these
time slots being overbooked.
Once again, thank you for participating in our
survey, but remember that you don’t have to wait
for the next survey to communicate your ideas or
problems: feel free to chat to your contact or to me.
The duty microscopist is available between 9am and 5pm from Modnay to Friday.
About the Use of USB Drives
When it comes to collecting your data, many
users want to remove their data with USB
drives. Please do not use USB drives in
any of our computers that are running
microscopes, because of the high risk of
virus infection. Once a computer that runs a
microscope goes down, everyone’s access
to the instrument is impaired. Instead, you
can efficiently move your data by using
the FTP client. For details of how to do this,
please go to our website or talk to your EMU
contact.
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News from the Laboratories
The game’s afoot in the EMU’s laboratories
again as minor refurbishments and instrument
reshuffles are made to accommodate new
capabilities.
Work on room 112 (a.k.a. Imagelab) started on
Monday 26 October in order to accommodate
the forthcoming Xradia MicroCT and NanoCT
systems. These exciting systems will offer
greater capacity in the X-ray tomography area,
supporting the extremely busy Skyscan 1072, as
well as bringing entirely new capabilities such
as tomographic X-ray imaging at resolutions
below 100 nm. Keep watching forthcoming
newsletters for more details about what these
babies can do. However, before users can get
their hands on these systems, we need to make
space for them in room 112, as well as widening
the doorway to the room to accommodate these
large (and heavy) instruments. So, for the next
month or so, all equipment in this room has
been relocated. The Skyscan MicroCT remains
fully operational in its new temporary home of
room 215 (the teaching laboratory); it will return
to room 112 after the works are completed.
Regular users of the Skyscan should contact Mr
Dennis Dwarte, Image Visualisation & Analysis
Specialist, on x17534 if they have any queries
about access and use of the Skyscan during this
time.
Meanwhile, the light microscopes from room 112
have been permanently relocated to room 114.
Questions related to these instruments should
be addressed to Ms Ellie Kable, Laboratory
Manager, x17566. The Nikon C1 LIMO confocal
microscope has vacated its home in room 111
to join its counterparts in 114, making this room
a hub for light-optical microscopy. The PicoPlus
scanning probe microscope has been moved
from room 114 across the hall into room 111 to
give it a dedicated space. Questions about the
LIMO should be addressed to Dr Errin Johnson,
acting Light & Optical Imaging Specialist, on
x17642 while Dr Wenrong Yang (University Post-
doctoral Research Fellow, x17548) or Mr Alex
La Fontaine (Atom Probe Specialist, x17541) can
field questions on the PicoPlus.
The Materials Sample Preparation Laboratory
(room 110) is also having a quick facelift. It will
be unavailable for a week from 2 November as
some minor changes are made in the layout of
the laboratory to accommodate some new gear
for specimen preparation. When the labora-
tory reopens on 9 November, it will sport a
revamped area for cutting and polishing, which
will offer a TegraPol-25 Grinding/polishing
system with auto control and a TegraForce-5
sample holder, a CitoPress-10 auto-mounting
system to make metallographic blocks, and a
Heavy duty – the Skyscan MicroCT on its way to its new temporary home in room 215, also known as the “teaching lab’ .
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LectroPol-5 electropolishing system for etching
of metallographic specimens. And an additional
fume cupboard will also be available in the labo-
ratory to house the LectroPol-5. Any questions
about specimen preparation in the meantime, or
about the new equipment, should be directed to
Mr Adam Sikorski, Materials Specimen Preparation
Specialist, x17546.
The unit’s first accredited Category-2 user on the new JEOL 2100 cryo-TEM, Danny Liu (left), with Dr Dave Mitchell.
Congratulations go to Danny Liu, a PhD student
in the School of Biological Sciences, for becoming
our first accredited Category-2 user on the new
JEOL 2100 cryo-transmission electron micro-
scope (TEM). Danny is making use of the new
automated tomography capabilities offered by
this instrument for 3-D structural visualisation
of plant cells. The unit’s Dr Dave Mitchell, who
trained Danny, developed the training programs
for the 2100 and for the other two new TEMs
(1400 and 2200FS). Dave and colleagues are
now in full swing training users. To date, the
three new instruments have attracted more than
60 users, with many more waiting in the wings.
More information:
Ellie Kable
Laboratory Manager
Tel. 02 9351 7566
Come and join us for our
Christmas Party10 December 2009 at 1:00 pmElectron Microscope Unit
We are looking forward to welcoming you to the EMU Christmas party in room 236 in Madsen Building.
Please bring a plate to share for the buffet lunch, and a gift for the giving tree if you wish.
RSVP by 8 December to Dave Mc Manamon ph. 9351 2351 or e-mail [email protected] cone di dolupt
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Talented Students Display Their Talents for Microscopy
Semester One of 2009 found three second-year
students eagerly working on research projects
in the Electron Microscope Unit. Why (perhaps
you find yourself asking) would such young un-
dergraduate students be doing this? The answer
is that Ms Yvonne Kong, Mr Kin Lam, and Mr
Alex Ng were doing research within the EMU
thanks to the Talent Student Program (TSP)
run by the Faculty of Science. The TSP aims to
give academically outstanding students extra
opportunities, including doing research, to learn
and develop skills throughout their degrees.
So, for about six months, the trio worked on
projects within the EMU, interspersing time in
the lab with their other studies and growing to
enjoy their research so much that they contin-
ued it through the mid-year break. Yvonne and
Kin worked on methods for producing graphene
— the new wunderkind of the nanomaterials
world — from its parent material graphite. These
two projects were done with Dr Wenrong Yang
and A/Prof. Filip Braet. Alex, in contrast, studied
the effect of new thermomechanical-processing
methods on the mechanical properties of an
aluminium alloy, working with Dr Gang Sha and
Prof. Simon Ringer.
As one part of the assessment for their projects
(which are worth credit points for their de-
grees, just like traditional subjects), each of
the students gave a formal presentation about
their research on 28 August 2009. Yvonne’s
presentation, “The search for monolayer
graphene: liquid-phase exfoliation of bulk
graphite”, explained the challenges of obtaining
graphene from graphite. Graphene is a single
sheet of graphite that is atomically thin and
has unprecedented electronic and mechanical
properties, but it can be difficult to isolate the
single layers or ‘monolayers’ from graphite.
By using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and
scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Yvonne
From left to right: Dr Wenrong Yang, Ms Yvonne Kong, Mr Kin Lam, Mr Alex Ng, Dr Gwénaëlle Proust (TSP Coordinator for the EMU), Dr Gang Sha and A/Prof. Filip Braet.
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showed that matching the surface tension
of organic solvents to the surface energy
of graphite was able to release or ‘exfoliate’
graphene fragments into suspension. Applying
this approach to lithographically made pillars on
a bulk-graphite substrate allowed production
of discs of graphene. Kin examined a differ-
ent route to produce graphene, based on the
oxidation of graphite to produce hydrophilic
‘graphene oxide’, which is readily exfoliated
in water. One difficulty with this approach is
that the oxidants often contain metal ions that
contaminate and thereby adversely affect the
properties of the final product. Entitled “Making
graphene nice and clean”, Kin’s talk showed the
viability of using ‘piranha solution’ (a mixture of
sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide) to oxidise
graphite to make metal-free graphene oxide;
his work also incorporated the use of AFM and
SEM (see below). Alex presented a quite different
What do the talented students think?
Mr Alex Ng, a second-year student doing a
combined science-medicine degree, talks about
his experiences working in the EMU on as part of
the Faculty of Science’s Talent Student Program.
Early in the year, we were offered the opportunity
to do a range of projects on a myriad of topics
relating to engineering at the EMU. Studying many
biology subjects at the time, I was interested to
learn about engineering, another of my interest
areas. I was also examining electron micrographs
in histology at the time, so I was keen to acquire
hands-on knowledge about the machines that
were responsible for the pictures. I had also learnt
some basic knowledge about materials strength
testing in physics in first year, and felt research
in this area was particularly relevant in modern
society. The project I completed was about the
mechanical properties of a particular alloy of
aluminium. A novel processing technique, equal
channel angular pressing, was applied to billets
of the alloy and the observed properties were
analysed with respect to the fracture surface as
viewed under the SEM. I felt the project was a
greatly enriching experience, both in the specific
knowledge I gained in metallurgy and materials
science, and universal skills such as scientific inves-
tigation and reporting my findings professionally.
I gained plenty of insight into working in the field
of research, which I may pursue after completing
medicine. I enjoyed working under the direction
of Gang Sha who provided countless hours of
assistance, guidance and advice, and shared his
passion for research and discovery. The staff at
EMU were also very helpful in acquainting me with
the complex machinery hidden under Madsen
building that were vital for my project. I would be
excited to learn how to use the other equipment
available at the EMU, and look forward to working
with the EMU be it for pursuits in materials science
or medicine further down the track.
An AFM image (top) of graphene oxide derived from oxidation of graphite powder in 1:1 H2SO4:H2O2 ‘piranha solution’, showing the occurrence of single-layer and multilayer graphene oxide. The line trace (bottom) is the height variation of the sample corresponding to the green line in the AFM image. The approximate layer thickness of approximately 1 nm is consistent with a single layer of graphene oxide.
Single‐layer
grapheneoxide
0.4µm2
~1nmheight
9:l;layer
graphene
oxide
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talk on “Evaluation of mechanical properties of
nanostructured 6060 alloys”. His study involved
measuring the mechanical properties of a
commonly used aluminium alloy that had been
processed by ‘equal channel angular processing’
(ECAP). By correlating the results of tensile tests
with fracture surfaces examined by SEM and
other microstructural analyses, Alex was able to
explain the improvements in properties caused
by ECAP (see diagram at top).
The main supervisors of the students, Wenrong
and Gang, were pleased with how quickly they
took to research and microscopy. Everyone
else who went to the students’ presentations
on 28 August was mightily impressed by the
quality of their slides, their oral presentation skills
and their solid grasp of entirely new research
areas. All this was tribute to the obvious talent
of these students, as well as to the support
they received in the unit. Now, the students are
looking forward to the next adventure — doing
international exchange as part of their degrees
during the next year or so. Meanwhile, we hope
to see them back again as microscopy users
in a couple of years when they are doing their
honours or PhD research.
Top: Results from tensile testing demonstrate the marked (>50%) increase in yield strength of an AA6060 aluminium alloy produced by four passes of ECAP at room temperature. SEM analysis of frac-ture surfaces demonstrates the grain refinement caused by ECAP (bot-tom) compared with the unproc-essed alloy (middle). ECAP-induced refinement of microstructure gener-ates a finely structured ductile failure as is evident in the fracture surface at bottom.
More information:
Dr Gwénaëlle Proust
Lecturer & TSP Coordinator
Tel. 02 9036 9491
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A/Prof. Filip Braet
Tel. 02 9351 7619 | [email protected]
Ms Uli Eichhorn
Tel. 02 9351 4493 | [email protected]
Ms Ellie Kable
Tel. 02 9351 7566 | [email protected]
Mr Dave Mc Manamon
Tel. 02 9351 2351 | [email protected]
Dr Kyle Ratinac
Tel. 02 9351 4513 | [email protected]
Editors
Electron Microscope UnitIncorporating the
Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility
Australian Key Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis
ARC Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006, Australia
Tel. + 61 2 9351 2351
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
Bits ’n Pieces
Long Service Leave for EMU Staff
Both the director and the lab manager are taking
long service leave in the next few months. Prof.
Simon Ringer will be taking a much-deserved
leave from 23 November 2009 until 1 March
2010. In Simon’s absence, A/Prof. Filip Braet will
be the acting director and Dr Julie Cairney will
be the acting deputy director.
Lab manager Ellie Kable will be taking a
combination of long service leave, study leave
and holidays in 2010. From 18 January, Dr David
Mitchell will be acting lab manager and will be
ably assisted by Dennis Dwarte who will be
acting deputy lab manager. We will be having
regular updates from Ellie as she visits various
facilities and brushes up on some live-cell imag-
ing while in the USA. During this time, Ellie’s
husband, Prof. Scott Kable from the School of
Chemistry, will be undertaking a Fulbright Senior
Scholarship at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison. We wish the Kable family a productive
and invigorating time in the States.
!::: EMU Closed for Planning Day :::
On Friday 20 November 2009, all EMU
staff will be off campus to hold a planning day.
Please note that, on this day, you will need to be
a CAT 3 user to book instruments. We aplogise
for any inconvenience. If you have any questions
or problems please speak to your EMU contact
person or Laboratory Manager Ellie Kable, on
phone 17566.
Christmas Holiday Shutdown Dates
Please note the EMU will be closed to all users
from 17 December 2009 to 4 January
2010, and will reopen on 5 January 2010.
For further information, please contact the duty
microscopist on 9351 7567.
