MSE Colloquium: Frank Scheltens, Advanced Characterization in the Materials Science Classroom

Abstract

Powerful advanced characterization tools have been developed that enable rapid characterization of materials down to the atomic level. Delivering these effective new capabilities to a wide range of researchers and students presents a challenge that is being met by the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis (CEMAS) at the Ohio State University.

The high cost of this modern instrumentation and the fiscal constraints faced by researchers in government laboratories, industry and academia are such that it is no longer feasible for each laboratory to maintain state-of-the-art facilities for materials characterization. Fortunately, recent parallel advancements in information technology present a possible solution to this dilemma by enabling remote instrument access capabilities such as those developed at CEMAS. This remote access technology has lead to the establishment of a collaboratory for materials characterization between CEMAS and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in which researchers at AFRL are able to access electron optical equipment located in CEMAS in Columbus, Ohio from sixty miles away at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

Materials science classroom instruction in characterization, with its requirement for multiple student access to single seat instruments, faces the same challenge.  By combining this newly established remote instrument access capability with the recently completed digital theater at CEMAS, single user characterization instruments become available to an entire classroom of students. This potential for live characterization instruction in the classroom is radically changing the way we think about teaching and training paradigms.

Bio

Frank Scheltens is currently a research scientist at the Center For Electron Microscopy and Analysis (CEMAS) at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He also holds the position of Lecturer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering within the College of Engineering at the Ohio State University. His current research interests include using electron microscopy based advanced characterization tools to study the nature of organic photovoltaic based solar cell devices, the effect of various treatments on human dentin material, and precipitation phenomena in nickel based superalloys. He is also interested in the development and use of information technology that enables remote access to electron microscopy tools, especially as it relates to microscopy based education curriculum. After receiving his Master of Science In Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he worked at the University of Illinois, Center For Microanalysis of Materials as a research scientist. Prior to joining CEMAS, he was program manager and senior scientist at the Materials Characterization Facility located in the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.