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EMU Newsletter November/December 2007 | 1
EMUNewsletter November/December 2007
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
It’s Time to Celebrate! The EMU’s Golden Jubilee 2008 • EMU Shutdown Between
Christmas and New Year • Journal Front Covers 2007 • Conference News • Award for
PhD Student Anna Ceguerra • Microscopes on the Move Travels to the Northern
Territory • Accessing the EMU and the AMMRF through National Competitive Grants
It’s Time to Celebrate!
We are delighted to announce the start of the
unit’s Golden Jubille year, 2008. This significant
milestone was heralded by Prof. Simon Ringer
in his welcome speech during our recent
Christmas party, which was held under the
motto “Celebrating the EMU’s Golden Fifties”.
The unit is looking back on five decades of
growth and success and, glancing at our history,
it becomes apparent what an important role the
EMU has played in teaching and research on
campus.
Back in the 1950s, there was growing demand
from researchers across the University for access
to electron microscopy; this new technology was
seen as an essential tool for research, particularly
in the life sciences. The University of Sydney, with
distinct farsightedness, decided to meet this need
by providing an electron microscope as part of a
centralised service that was not associated with
any one department or faculty, but that would
serve all equally. As a result, the Electron Micro-
scope Unit was born back in 1958.
What started as a small support unit in the Bank
Building today incorporates the Australian Key
Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, as well
as the headquarters of the Australian Microscopy
& Microanalysis Research Facility (AMMRF), and
is home to 53 staff members and PhD students
and nearly 30 major instruments.
To celebrate these achievements, we will be
holding a series of high-profile events during the
course of 2008, which are listed below:
A 6-month exhibition at the University of
Sydney’s Macleay Museum, entitled “Small
Matters – Exploring the World of Microscopy”
(July–December 2008). We invite staff, students
and the public to discover the exciting world of
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
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microscopy. In conjunction with the exhibition,
we will also offer special lectures, family days as
well as a regular seminar series.
A 3-day international symposium involving many
leading microscopists (3–5 December 2008).
This major symposium will see the world’s
leading microscopists on hand to celebrate the
Golden Jubilee, but, more importantly, to discuss
the future directions of advanced microscopy
technologies, both in the Australian context and
as it applies globally.
An Official Gala Luncheon in the University
of Sydney’s Great Hall in association with the
symposium. This event will celebrate not only the
EMU’s achievements, but also the long associa-
tions the unit has had with our users, students,
collaborators and instrument suppliers, without
whom the last 50 years of discovery would not
have been possible.
EMU Shutdown Between Christmasand New Year
The EMU will shutdown for its traditional clean-
up from 19 December 2007 and will reopen for
business on Wednesday, 03 January 2008.
If you wish to use the facility in the shutdown
period you must be a CAT 3 user and get per-
mission to work. Please contact Ellie Kable
(9351 7566) for further inquiries.
And last but not least – our history book “50
Great Moments – Celebrating the Golden Jubi-
lee of the University of Sydney’s Electron Micro-
scope Unit”. In this book, editor Dr Kyle Ratinac
collects some of the highlights of the EMU’s rich
history, its most outstanding achievements, as
well as an insight into the unit’s social life.
In addition to these activities, a series of work-
shops and lectures are planned to take place to
celebrate the EMU’s growth to its current role
as an influential and integral part of the Univer-
sity of Sydney.
More information:
Uli Eichhorn
Design Coordinator &
Head of Jubilee Organising Committee
Tel. +61 2 9351 4493
More information:
Ellie Kable
Laboratory Manager
Tel. +61 2 9351 7566
We wish all our users, collaborators, students and colleagues a very
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Your EMU Team
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Journal Front Covers in 2007
The following published work of EMU researchers
has been selected to grace the front covers of
leading journals. Congratulations to all!
We are looking forward to next year to add some
new highlights to our AKCMM front cover gallery.
Also, we are keen to hear if one of our user’s
work has been featured on any front covers.
Please email the literature reference and a PDF
or scan of your cover page to A/Prof. Filip Braet.
This article was published in an Elsevier journal. The attached copyis furnished to the author for non-commercial research and
education use, including for instruction at the author’s institution,sharing with colleagues and providing to institution administration.
Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling orlicensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party
websites are prohibited.
In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of thearticle (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website orinstitutional repository. Authors requiring further information
regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies areencouraged to visit:
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright
Ringer et al. in: Microscopy & Research Techniques
Yang et al. in: Nanotechnology Uzun et al. in: Hearing Research
NanotechnologyVol 18, No 41
412001–41900117 October 2007
I S S N 0 9 5 7 - 4 4 8 4
NANOTECHNOLOGYV O L U M E 1 8 N U M B E R 4 1 1 7 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7
www.iop.org/journals/nano
Topical review:Carbon nanotubes for biological and biomedical
applicationsWenrong Yang, Pall Thordarson, J Justin Gooding,
Simon P Ringer and Filip Braet
International Conference on Advanced Materials (ICAM 2007)
In October, two Key Centre’s PhD students,
Daniel Haley and Leigh Stephenson, attended
the International Conference on Advanced Mate-
rials (ICAM 2007) held in Bangalore, India. Talks
were presented in a wide range of symposia,
and included topics like magnetic and spintronic
materials, multilayered materials, as well as
materials characterisation and microscopy. Leigh
Stephenson generated much discussion with a
well received talk examining the link between
hardness and microstructure in a series of aged
aluminium-silver-copper alloys. Participants
discussed a full TEM survey, and considered
preliminary results from atom probe tomography.
Daniel Haley attended in lieu of Prof. Simon
Ringer, and he outlined the recent achievements
of the unit in atom probe tomography, followed
by a discussion regarding analysis and data
mining of atom probe results to characterise the
underlying nanostructure of titanium and several
aluminium alloys. Daniel also presented a poster
on his work in the study of amorphous magne-
sium alloys using advanced TEM techniques,
with his poster being shown in the conference
highlights.
More information:
Daniel Haley
PhD Student
Tel. +61 2 9351 7547
More information:
A/Prof. Filip Braet
Deputy Director
Tel. +61 2 9351 7619
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Award for PhD Student Anna Ceguerra
Ms Anna Ceguerra, a PhD student at the Key
Centre, has received the Microbeam Analysis So-
ciety’s Distinguished Scholar Award at the latest
Microscopy and Microanalysis 2007 meeting in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. She was reward-
ed for her abstract entitled “Analysis Techniques
for Nanoscale Solute Clustering in Atom Probe
Tomography”, written with Dr Michael Moody,
Mr Leigh Stephenson and Prof. Simon Ringer,
and presented during the symposium for “Atom
Probe Tomography: An Evolving Technique for
Nanostructural Characterisation”.
The work presented at this meeting forms a part
of Anna’s PhD project, which is supervised by
Prof. Simon Ringer, Dr Michael Moody and Dr
Julie Cairney.
Conference News
On 7-9 November 2007, Judith Field and two
indigenous collaborators from Brewarrina, Mr
Garry Lord and Mr Brett Cochrane, attended the
annual conference at the Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies held
at the ANU in Canberra. The conference was
commemorating 40 years since the referendum
Anna Ceguerra working on the unit’s new wide-field-of-view laser atom probe.
More information:
Anna Ceguerra
PhD Student
Tel. +61 2 9351 7547
From left to right: Garry Lord, Brett Cochrane and Ken Mulvaney (archaeologist from UNE).
of 1967. The co-presented paper, entitled “From
Edge to Centre: Aborigines and Megafaunal
Extinctions in Australia”, discussed how the role
of Aborigines in archaeology had evolved and
changed over recent years. The culmination of
this collaboration is demonstrated in their direct
involvement in excavation and recording of sites
and their subsequent role in presenting these
results to the wider community and co-author-
ship in publications. Mr Lord and Mr Cochrane
also toured the Electron Microscope Unit and
visited the Australian Museum as part of the trip
to Canberra. The paper was very well received
and was highly supported by other academic
colleagues.
More information:
Dr Judith Field
Senior Research Assoiate
Tel. +61 2 9351 7547
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The EMU’s Microscopes on the Move Travels to the Northern Territory
Microscopes on the Move (MOTM) began
taking its travelling microscopy exhibit to
schools in 2000 as an education initiative from
the Australian Key Centre for Microscopy and
Microanalysis (AKCMM).
Since then, it has travelled extensively in NSW
and down through country Victoria and also
into Queensland. In September 2007, it ventured
into Alice Springs, breaking new ground in
microscopy outreach in Australia, with a JEOL
T200 scanning electron microscope (SEM) and
a suite of light microscopes travelling to the Red
Centre.
The invitation for this visit came from a con-
sortium of high schools in Alice Springs and
neighbouring areas (with one group from
Tennant Creek, which is approximately 500 km
away). Together, these schools had successfully
applied for Federal Government funding through
the ASISTM (Australian School Innovation in
Science, Technology and Mathematics) project.
The aim was to bring “hands-on” science activi-
ties into the relatively isolated schools in the
area to help supplement the related theory in
the school curriculum.
The process of organising the logistics for the
visit revealed just how geographically isolated
these communities actually are – the distances
and the terrain to be covered are quite daunt-
ing, and the funding required to make it all
happen seemed equally overwhelming. But it’s
a credit to the determination of the teachers
involved that they were keen to do what they
could to make the visit a reality – even as initial
estimates indicated that the original funding
allocated would need to be increased by about
a factor of three!
The travelling SEM and other equipment are
usually shipped to schools via the Key Centre’s
Ford Transit van, which has been fitted with a
wheel-chair lift and special anchor points for se-
curing the equipment for safe travel on the road.
For the this tour, it was deemed to be more
economical and time-efficient to place the entire
van (with all MOTM equipment safely strapped
up inside) onto the back of a semi-trailer and
freight it to Alice Springs; the cost for this alone
was over $6,000.
I had concerns about whether the equipment
would arrive on time and in good condition, as
Snapshots taken during Tony Romeo’s Microscopes on the Move visit to the Northern Territory.
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the van was to be on the road for a solid week
in order to get to Alice Springs early enough
for the scheduled setup. The SEM seemed
okay when it was wheeled out of the van and
made all the right noises when I switched on
the pumping system. My heart sank, however,
when I switched on the high voltage and got
no response! After a quick check to try and find
the possible cause, I got on the phone to the
unit’s “Mr Fixit” (Toshi Akawara), and we went
through the symptoms and managed to track
down the problem to a couple of connectors
that had vibrated loose over the course of the
journey. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the
SEM came back to life, and I could finally show
off some great images to the assembled helpers.
The only other glitch came on the afternoon of
the next day, when an internal aperture was
playing up. This necessitated splitting the mi-
croscope column and re-tightening the offend-
ing piece. After this, the rest of the week was
trouble-free, and it was certainly full-on. We ran
seven demonstration sessions per day as well as
a ‘teacher professional development session’ on
one afternoon and a 4-hour community night on
another day. I was very pleased to get to Friday
afternoon and finally load all the equipment
back into the van for the trip home.
The visit was a wonderful teaching experience
and the enthusiasm of the local science teach-
ers was certainly contagious. I got to meet a few
of them at an informal BBQ on the evening that
I arrived, as well as while working with them
through the course of the school visits and the
development session.
Around 1000 students and visitors from a broad
range of science levels and interests attended
the exhibit, and it was great to see the high per-
centage of Indigenous kids within the groups.
Approximately 500 students received hands-
on experience on the SEM. They were able to
image specimens such as a fly, a plant leaf and
radiolarians at much higher resolutions than they
had ever seen before. The new visual world and
the scientific relevance of the experience will
hopefully remain with the students for a long
time to come. It was certainly a memorable way
to mark the first outreach activity of the Sydney
node of the new Australian Microscopy and
Microanalysis Research Facility (AMMRF).
More information:
Tony Romeo
SEM Support Officer
Tel. +61 2 9351 7565
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A/Prof. Filip Braet
Tel. +61 2 9351 7619
Editors
Dr Kyle Ratinac
Tel. +61 2 9351 4513
Ms Uli Eichhorn
Tel. +61 2 9351 4493
Electron Microscope UnitIncorporating
Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility
Australian Key Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis
ARC Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006, Australia
Tel. + 61 2 9351 2351
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
Ms Ellie Kable
Tel. +61 2 9351 7566
Accessing the EMU and the AMMRF through National Competitive Grants
In a research intensive environment like the
University of Sydney, chances are you and/
or some of your colleagues are preparing an
application for an ARC or NHMRC grant next
year. We know the blood, sweat and tears that
go into this process and so offer our sincere
best wishes for the development and success of
these applications.
Keep in mind that the EMU and the AMMRF
can make an important contribution to the char-
acterisation needs of most research projects. So
for all grant applicants who plan to access the
facilities in the EMU, it is important to include a
line item in the application budgets to help cover
our extremely reasonable access costs.
When you use the instruments and expertise in
the unit, your project incurs costs for instrument
time, some specimen preparation materials and
the input of our expert staff. The ARC or NHMRC
contribute towards these costs, provided they
are included in the budget of a successful appli-
cation. A full explanation of how to estimate your
time requirements and the corresponding cost
and how to incorporate this into your application
may be found at the EMU website www.emu.
usyd.edu.au. Follow the link on the front page
under “Access Guidelines and Instructions for
Grant Applicants”.
More information:
Dr Kyle Ratinac
Research Development Manager
Tel. +61 2 9351 4513
Advice to Applicants for ARC and NHMRC Grants for Funding in 2009 Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility
(AMMRF)
For Pure, Applied & Industrial Research
The AMMRFEstablished in July 2007 under the Commonwealth Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), the AMMRF
is a joint venture between Australian university-based microscopy and microanalysis centres. The AMMRF (ammrf.org.au) is a national grid of
equipment, instrumentation and expertise in microscopy and microanalysis providing nanostructural characterisation capability and services to
all areas of nanotechnology and biotechnology research.Operating in nodes located in major capital cities with links to smaller units in specialist facilities, the Facility provides access to a vast array of
instrumentation. These include widely used optical, electron, x-ray and ion beam techniques and importantly, state-of-the-art flagship platforms
that form world leading capabilities. Such capabilities include pulsed-laser local electrode atom probe, high-throughput cryo-electron tomography,
high-resolution SEM and spectroscopy, high-precision ion microprobe and high-resolution TEM platforms.
Planning for your Research NeedsEach project incurs costs in terms of instrument time, preparation materials and staff input. It is necessary that a part-contribution to these
increasing costs be provided by users and, so far as is possible, that these costs are planned for and included in the budget of research
proposals.
EXAMPLE: For 2008 ARC Discovery grant ap-plications, include a line item in the Budget Table under ‘Other’ as shown on the left.This example relates to a project that requires access to electron microscopy for one sample per week, at 4 hour per sample, for 45 weeks. This yields 180 h of beam time and a total project cost of $7,200 for AMMRF flagship instruments.
The host University maintains substantial infra-structure and the value of this is transmitted to research projects at a level at least equivalent to instrument usage charged at at least $40/hour for AMMRF flagship instruments.
Advanced Microscopy and Microanalysis (180 h @ $40) 7200 7200
Please note:
This principle also applies for ARC Linkage applications.
ammrf.org.au
Before final submission, contact relevant node to confirm budget details and project description.
December 2008