To create a nationally replicable model of a sustainable and continuously up-gradable hands-on undergraduate teaching laboratory of scanning probe methods, GEMSEC is working with researchers from the UW's Center for Nanotechnology, educators from North Seattle Community College, representatives from a scanning probe microscopy manufacturer, and a nanotechnology SPM distributor. This partnership, NUE UNIQUE, will inaugurate a new paradigm of initiating, operating, and maintaining a SPM laboratory to serve entire classes of undergraduate students with a student to instrument ratio of ~3:1. UNIQUE is based on leasing a SPM bundle of five instruments with well documented laboratory units and teaching materials for a two-week-long intensive class. UNIQUE will develop the laboratory course with 10 units as well as an introductory course and a seminar in nanotechnology. After development and refinement at the UW, dissemination will occur nationwide though the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers and the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network.
