University of Rhode Island unveils first-of-its-kind microscope in the U.S.

THE UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND recently unveiled a new microscope that scientists can apply to industries ranging from transportation to medicine. / COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The University of Rhode Island last week unveiled a new microscope – the first of its kind in the U.S. – that scientists can apply to industries ranging from transportation to medicine.

The $1.3 million instrument, an electron probe microanalyzer known as the EPMA-8050G, can nondestructively analyze solid materials down to the nanoscale level to determine the elements that make up the object. The high-powered microscope can also determine how much of each element is in an object, and the space between elements.

“One application is brake pads in automobiles,” Joel Langford, an elemental spectroscopy product specialist for URI’s Shimadzu Engineering Research Core Facility, said in a statement. “You can look at the wear and tear of a brake pad as a function of how much the brake was used and learn how to increase the efficiency of the pad by mapping out its elemental composition.”

The microscope is already in use in Japan, but URI’s is the first of its kind in the United States.

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The microscope is in the Shimadzu Engineering Research Core Facility within the university’s Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering.

It is available for use by scientists and researchers within and outside the URI community.

Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Voghel@PBN.com.

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