Third year laboratory students trained on million dollar machines

(left) a light bulb filament as seen in the scanning electron microscope and (right) third year student Lorraine Sassine using a sputter coating unit to prepare SEM samples.

The aim of our third year laboratory courses is to reinforce and illustrate the physics our students learn in lectures, while exposing them to a wide variety of experimental techniques used in modern research and industry, and giving them the opportunity and training to operate commercial equipment. To this end, some 20% of laboratory course time is spent using state-of-the-art university facilities located outside the School. Examples include scanning and transmission electron microscopes and an electron microprobe, in the Electron Microscope Unit and an X-ray diffractometer in the School of Chemistry,

Each "external" experiment is designed to be a "complete exercise" requiring four hours. Important factors governing the epistemology and pedagogy include:

• students work in pairs on these experiments, to allow co-operation and quicker discovery of methods
  
• "hands-on" by students (with a guiding hand) under real conditions of research machines
  
• "real-world" samples and specimens, prepared by the students, which demonstrate principles studied in lecture courses
  
• "competency development" - the student sits in the "driver's seat"

Each student attends a preliminary four-hour session in the teaching laboratory, where the necessary competencies are developed and tested. Training aids include computer simulation, video, whiteboard, overheads and a variety of physical models. Also available is a range of decommissioned equipment, which has been carefully sectioned to reveal the innermost functional components, such as electron lenses and detectors.

Taken together, the students are able to see, touch and understand the nature, scale and place of essential components and to gain a holistic view of the interaction of various parts of each machine. The students are trained and then their competencies tested, for all of the major steps and processes used in operating the real instruments.

We are grateful to the Electron Microscope Unit and the School of Chemistry for their helpful co-operation in the use of these facilities.