Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Physics have all the reason to be joyful. They recently received a $431,200 grant from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) that will be used to purchase an advanced, highly specialized imaging system, the first of its kind to be installed in Alabama. The planned X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy System (XPS) has the ability to image objects at the microscale, and experts at the university are thrilled to have this chance to conduct more research on tiny objects and interactions.

“The UAB acquisition of imaging XPS will create a unique experimental facility that should have many positive implications for advancing research in many disciplines, from physics and chemistry to biomedical engineering and materials science,” explains physicist Yogesh Vohra, PhD. He is one of the two directors for the new project, alongside physicist Andrei Stanishevsky, PhD. The direct beneficiary of the new device will be the UAB Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration, where a new material-characterization facility will be developed, around the XPS instrument.

“There are similar XPS systems being used right now in Alabama to analyze the critical features of micro- and nano-scale materials, but the equipment we will bring to UAB will be the first in the state with imaging capabilities. The imaging capability will allow our researchers to physically see and more closely examine surface chemistry and impurities in the materials we are studying,” adds Stanishevsky. The XPS is best fit for probing extremely thin layers of material, and determining their composition. The chemical-analysis technique has a micrometer resolution, which means that newly developed materials will be studied with one of the best available methods in the world today.

The experts explain that a lot of the studies that will be conducted with the new machine will feature novel materials, which had their surface properties modified by chemical reactions. The extent of the changes they underwent and the effects they had on the overall properties of the materials are very difficult to determine, but the XPS system is especially designed to do just that. “Being able to understand the components of these materials will have a colossal impact on the productivity of our research,” Stanishevsky adds.