A- Level Students operate Electron Microscopes

Once again our School visits were well attended with nearly 600 students visiting the campus from across the West Country. Everyone was very enthusiastic and enjoyed the demonstrations and operating the electron microscopes.

Your images are now posted in the Gallery.

We wish every success to all the students in their A levels.

Schools visits

September schools visits are now fully booked (within 4 days of announcement). Sorry if you missed out this time, but we have a second series of workshops planned for Easter next year. Please contact us for more details and to book your session.

Schools' visits 2009

The E M Centre is now up and running in the new laboratory, and we are pleased to announce our annual schools' visits for A level biologists will be during the two weeks beginning September 14th 2009.

Industrial Users Day

Thanks for everyones support in attending a very successful ‘Industrial Users Day’.

Following on so closely from the December event I was delighted to see over 45 delegates with representation from a wide variety of local businesses across the Advanced Engineering, Electronics, Marine and other sectors, and to welcome colleagues from a number of support organisations / sector groups including: SWMAS, CDC, Business Link, Tamar Science Park, Cornwall Marine Network and the Cornwall Manufacturers Forum.

Special thanks go to our guest speakers Richard Offer (Barden Aerospace & Super Precision) Victor Arghyrou (Atlantic Inertial Systems) Chris Boleman (X-Fab UK) and Janardhan Saithala (Fine Tubes Ltd), and to the companies (Heathcoat Fabrics, CENTRAX and Vygon UK) who presented posters.

The event clearly demonstrated the EMC’s role and value as a local resource supporting industry in areas such as failure analysis, materials properties and investigations of manufacturing processes. It was also clear that we must now plan for the future; enhancing our services, and ensuring we continue to develop the infrastructure needed to help both existing and new clients to strengthen their competitiveness.

We will continue to develop closer links with the industrial community and its representatives, and we look forward to working together with you in the future.

Dr R.M. Moate
Manager,Plymouth Electron Microscopy Centre
University of Plymouth
Plymouth PL4 8AA
Tel: (01752) 584535 Fax:(01752) 233095

EmPod making waves at the National Marine Aquarium

EmPod is a virtual scanning electron microscope designed and created by staff from the Electron Microscopy Centre and the Institute for Digital Art Technology.













As a major exhibit in the exciting “ExplorOcean” development at the NMA EmPod has been wowing visitors of all ages who are able to zoom in thousands of times to get a close up, clear view of microscopic marine life.


Image sets were created with the scanning electron microscope at the EM Centre by Peter Bond to give visitors the chance to delve into aspects of marine science research at the University using sophisticated equipment which they would normally never see or use.

The images show EmPod in action (with Matt Bilson from IDAT) and one of the wonders of the microscopic marine world. These are coccolithophores, tiny marine plankton, only 10 thousandths of a millimetre in diameter, which can give insights into climate change. Glenn Harper from the EM Centre is working with Colin Brownlee from the Marine Biological Association to investigate the biology of these fascinating organisms to help us understand the effects of global warming on our oceans.