Southeast Missouri State University has been awarded $228,400 from the National Science Foundation to go toward a piece of equipment called a “Powder X-Ray Diffractometer.”
Physics professor Peggy Hill says the device, which will allow students to observe substances on a molecular level, will benefit multiple departments.
She joined with professors Sarah Shaner and Marcus Bond in the chemistry department to write up the grant proposal in order to replace on older machine that had fallen out of use. Initially, they had to outsource some of the study to other universities.
Hill says to have a machine of their own on the horizon gives them a sense of independence.
“Previously, what we had done was to collaborate with groups at Carbondale or somewhere farther away in order to look at our samples,” she says. “But this is not optimal because it takes a couple of weeks.”
In her department, students make alloys. Now, the machine allows them to observe the substances.
“So we can make brand new materials that nobody’s ever seen or worked with before, but we don’t have a method for knowing whether or not they’re what we think they are,” says Hill, “or if they are of good quality.”
The new machine will enable students to create and look at their samples. At the same time, she says it will allow them to offer something to other universities as well.
“So if we maybe run X-ray measurements on their samples, they might run magnetic measurements on our samples, and so we’d be able to have a trade-off,” she says. And, to have this opportunity available to undergraduates is significant.
“I think this is really going to help us move our research much faster than it has before,” says Hill.
They won’t begin work on the grant before September, and it will run for two years after. The process will continue for two years as they train on it and “get going” with some of their research. Along with Shaner and Bond, Hill will train students on the machine.
They are hoping to obtain the machine itself by the spring semester, if not by the end of this year.