Congrats to our 2020 Award winners!

Anna Fraser presents her work at Science in the Stacks.

A hearty round of applause for our 2020 Award Winners. We continue to be impressed by the terrific work of our awardees. These individuals were celebrated at the annual RTNN Awards and Appreciation Dinner last month, which was held virtually.

2020 RTNN Student Awards

The RTNN Student Outreach award recognizes a student for exemplary leadership, initiative, and ongoing commitment to the mission of expanding access to RTNN nanotechnology user facilities.

Headshot, Jessica Chestnut

Jessica Chestnut (NC State) – Jessica graduated from NC State University in May 2020 with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering. She is now pursuing a PhD in Chemistry in Dr. Paul Maggard’s group at NC State. She volunteered with RTNN over the past year in numerous capacities including RTNN’s first two visits to more remote parts of North Carolina near Hickory and Asheville.


Headshot of Beatriz Medrano

Beatriz Medrano (Duke) – Beatriz is an undergraduate student at Duke majoring in electrical and computer engineering and computer science. Beatriz began volunteering at SMIF her first semester at Duke (2018) and has put in countless hours both at schools for science nights and at SMIF for summer camps and school visits. She goes out of her way to arrange her schedule to be able to help and is usually the first person we hear back from when we are looking for help with outreach events.


Anna Fraser (UNC) – Anna is currently a graduate student in Chemistry at UNC. She works in Dr. Theo Dingemans group. She has volunteered at many events over the past couple of years including those at the Chapel Hill Public Library. Anna also volunteers through the Student Chapter of the Materials Research Society at UNC. Anna provides a welcoming and friendly environment to all participants.


2020 RTNN Collaborative Research Award

This award seeks to identify outstanding research projects, papers, and/or presentations that leverage the resources, equipment, and/or expertise available through the RTNN. Awarded research projects are expected to demonstrate a high-level of research progress and achievement that was made possible only by the use of two or more university sites or collaborators within the RTNN.

Carrie Donley and Fred Stevie

Educational resources for X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS)

Recently, a few publications have illustrated that a large percentage of research papers that include XPS data have seriously flawed interpretation of the data. As a response to this crisis in the field, the American Vacuum Society (AVS) sponsored a collection of publications to improve the overall understanding of XPS. Carrie and Fred prepared two papers for the AVS collection: one which is an overall introduction to XPS and a second paper that offers guidance on sample handling and preparation. These papers will not only help the researchers at NCSU and UNC, but in the larger XPS community as well.

”Introduction to X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS)”, Fred A. Stevie and Carrie L. Donley, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A38, 063204 (2020).

”Sample handling, preparation and mounting for XPS and other surface analytical techniques”, Fred A. Stevie, Roberto Garcia, Jeffrey Shallenberger, John G. Newman, and Carrie L. Donley, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A38, 063202 (2020).