It’s a Small World

Students from Nanomaterials Chemistry share their dramatic electron microscope images.

Students from Nanomaterials Chemistry share their dramatic electron microscope images.

In 2010, Lewis & Clark received funding from the W.M. Keck Foundation to acquire a scanning electron microscope to enhance teaching and research.

Similarly to the way in which a camera uses light, the microscope aims a beam of electrons at a sample, and the electrons that bounce back are translated into images. What do common objects look like at the nanoscale? Consider these 10 images taken by students in Nanomaterials Chemistry, a 300-level course taught by Associate Professor Anne Bentley in collaboration with Science and Data Services Librarian Parvaneh Abbaspour.