For the past four years, a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) at the University of Michigan has played a key role in a “microcourse” taught at Lehigh University. Each year, The Lehigh Microscopy School attracts 100-150 engineers and scientists who receive instruction in a wide variety of microscope techniques. The attendees range from novice users to expert professionals who need to stay current on the latest developments in the field of scanning and analytical electron microscopy. These 4-5 day lecture/lab courses are taught by noted experts and course attendees receive instruction on SEMs and other state-of-the-art instruments. One of these instruments is the Philips XL30FEG SEM located in the Electron Microbeam Analysis Laboratory (EMAL) at the University of Michigan (UM). The Philips line of SEMS was one of the first to be completely computer-controlled, as opposed to the knob and switch “interfaces” on older instruments. Extending its usability via remote-control to an Internet wide audience resulted from the work of Dr. John Mansfield and collaborators. Mansfield, Manager of the North Campus EMAL at UM, explained, “Advanced networks provide the bandwidth and performance required to control the SEM in real-time from anywhere in the world. Remote access extends the use of this extremely costly resource for instructional and collaborative research purposes.” Normally training on an SEM takes place in a cramped microscope room, allowing only 2-3 observers at a time to view the controls and instrument images. For the Lehigh microcourse, the SEM in Ann Arbor, MI was controlled from a laptop in Bethlehem, PA while course attendees viewed both the instrument controls and images in an auditorium-style setting. The computer that operates the SEM runs VNC (Virtual Network Computing), while the remote laptop runs software called VNC-Overlay, a customized program developed at EMAL. Video from the SEM is feed into a Linux video server, which digitizes and sends it as an MPEG-4 stream to the remote location. Mansfield
summarized, “From an instructional stand-point, the microscope being in Ann Arbor is a non-issue.”

Mansfield will be among the presenters in a special panel on teaching during the National Internet2 Day, an Internet2 virtual community event that will be netcast 18 March 2004. Dr. John Mansfield describes his work in this QuickTime video clip.

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