Iowa State University has been awarded a grant toward the purchase of a high-resolution, field-emission microscope from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, based in Muscatine, Iowa.
The Carver Trust will provide Iowa State with an $180,000 grant for the $305,000 microscope (FEG-SEM), which will be used by campus researchers in the life sciences, physical sciences and engineering. Richard LeSar, professor and chair of the department of materials science and engineering, is the proposal’s lead investigator.
“Instruments presently on campus lack the high-resolution capabilities required to quickly and easily investigate the nanostructured devices and materials currently being developed by our researchers for applications in a wide array of areas,” LeSar said.
Iowa State researchers can utilize the microscope in such areas as drug/vaccine delivery, catalyst development, thin-film technology, and bio-inspired composites. The high-resolution instrument will extend the working magnification range from the current practical limit of 50,000x to 150,000x or more.
The new microscope will replace a 22-year-old instrument currently housed in the Materials Analysis and Research Laboratory, a multiuser core facility located in the College of Engineering.
“Despite being upgraded several times over the course of its long life, the capabilities of this instrument simply do not meet modern requirements,” LeSar said. “This new instrument will be a significant improvement that will bring new capabilities in imaging.”
The Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust is a philanthropic foundation in Iowa with assets of more than $300 million and annual grant distributions of over $16 million. It was created through the will of Roy J. Carver, a Muscatine industrialist and philanthropist, who died in 1981.The Carver Trust has been a longtime supporter of Iowa State and is one of the university’s leading donors with a total giving of $24 million in gifts and grants.
This gift is part of Campaign Iowa State: With Pride and Purpose, the university’s $800 million fundraising effort. More than $730 million in gifts and future commitments for facilities and student, faculty and programmatic support have been made to Campaign Iowa State.
Contacts:
Richard LeSar, Materials Science and Engineering, 515.294.1841
Dave Gieseke, ISU Foundation Communications, 515.294.7263