The installation of a state-of-the-art X-ray scattering instrument at Kent State University two years ago has made the basement of the Integrated Sciences Building a busy place for researchers from across Northeast Ohio.
When Kent State’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute received state and national grant money for the device in 2020, university administrators predicted the machine would be a draw for researchers from other universities and private industry.
That prediction has come true.
Torsten Hegmann, Ph.D., director of the institute, said researchers from the University of Akron, Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve University are among the frequent users of the device, in addition to Kent State’s own scientists.
However, scientists from as far away as the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, also have come to Kent State to use the instrument, he said. In addition, non-academic researchers from businesses and industries in the region, such as Kent Displays, are frequently scheduling time to use the advanced technology.
“In our region, this is perhaps the best X-ray machine there is,” Hegmann said.
In 2020, Kent State received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Ohio Action Fund to purchase the device. The device can examine materials in scales ranging from a fraction of a nanometer to as large as several micrometers. Hegmann was a principal investigator on the science foundation grant.
The technology also gives Kent State an advantage for training and research work to help prepare an Ohio workforce for the coming Intel semiconductor plant in central Ohio. Kent State is the lead recipient of a collaborative grant involving 13 other Ohio higher education institutions that will prepare the workforce to support the semiconductor plant. Intel is investing $20 billion in Ohio, and Hegmann said the scattering X-ray device is a technology that Intel scientists also could use.
“Investments in state-of-the-art equipment like this serve not only to facilitate the success of KSU’s researchers but as a resource for the Northeast Ohio community at large,” said Doug Delahanty, Ph.D., vice president for research and economic development.
Kevin Cavicchi, Ph.D., professor in the School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering at the University of Akron, who served as a co-principal investigator for the initial science foundation grant application, frequently uses the machine for his research and said having the instrument close by enables him to conduct his research more efficiently.
“I worked on polymers that form organized structures on the nanoscale. You cannot see this with your eyes or an ordinary microscope,” Cavicchi said. “This instrument allows us to probe the structure at a wide range of length scales. Having it close by allows us to quickly assess our experiments and adjust our processes to fine-tune the structures we are trying to achieve.”
Cavicchi said Kent State and the University of Akron have much complementary research in liquid crystals and polymers, respectively. The University of Akron working with Kent State to help bring the instrument to the area was a great joint achievement, he said.
“I think it is a great example of how institutions can work together to provide critical research infrastructure needed by the whole Northeast Ohio region. They did a great job staffing the instrument with a dedicated scientist to help train students and get their experiments up and running,” Cavicchi said.
The device is one of only a few of its kind in the nation and allows researchers to fully understand the complex internal structure of soft matter, such as polymers and liquid crystals.
Since it was first installed, Hegmann said the instrument has been upgraded several times and fitted with accessories that make the device capable of even greater technological experimentation, including a hydraulic table-supported robotic 3D printer as an operating tool that allows interrogation of 3D printed filaments in the X-ray beam’s path.
The device also contains a motorized polarized optical microscope and several other advanced sample environments, making it even more unique, including temperature-control capabilities that allow materials to be heated and cooled as they are studied, as well as tools that permit dynamic experiments, such as sheared and stretched samples under temperature control.
“This whole room is the machine,” explained Hegmann, showing how the instrument takes up an entire room in the basement of the Integrated Sciences Building; its associated technology fills much of a secondary adjoining laboratory space. “With all these add-ons, this machine has become exceptional. There’s not really one like it anywhere in the vicinity.”
Learn more about Kent State’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute.