Speaker
Description
This talk will provide a brief review of past, current, and future efforts in mineral detection at the University of North Florida (UNF). We will present our work focused on halite samples where damage tracks were located and analyzed using laser confocal microscopy by enhancing the detectability of tracks using plasma etching. An etching rate model and an automatic track detection Python code was utilized to reconstruct damage track lengths. We also developed an automatic detection code for identifying a halo feature that we think was created by an inclusion in the sample emitting alpha particles as part of the uranium decay chain. Recent results from X-ray transmission beamtime at SLAC will be discussed. The samples included Au5+- irradiated quartz, mica, and olivine prepared at the University of Michigan (UM). Several of the samples had patterned features created with a focused ion beam (FIB) at UM to allow us to characterize the resolution of features in these samples with this technique. The results of imaging some of these samples using atomic force microscopy (AFM) at UNF will also be presented. Finally, we will conclude with an outlook on the future directions that will be pursued at UNF as a member of the NSF Growing Convergence Research group in the near term.
