Interactive Nano Visualization for Science and Engineering Education-Scanning Probe Microscope on the Web

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The integration of nano-science and technology concepts into upper-division high school and lower-division college curricula will require innovative educational approaches that will help students understand the structures and properties of matter on a scale below 100 nanometers, i.e., the nanoscale. This Interactive Nano-Visualization in Science and Engineering Education (IN-VSEE) project will create a consortium of university and industry researchers, community college and high school science faculty, computer scientists and museum educators with a common vision of creating an interactive World Wide Web (WWW) site to develop a new educational thrust based on remote operation of advanced microscopes and nanofabrication tools coupled to powerful surface characterization methods. The centerpiece of this project is the web-based operation of the revolutionary scanning probe microscope (SPM), which has evolved rapidly into a relatively simple, yet powerful, technique capable of imaging and manipulating materials at resolutions down to the atomic scale.