EMU Newsletter September/October 2009 | 1 EMU Newsletter 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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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.
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.