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18 March 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Elfrieda Lotter
From the Centre for Microscopy are, from the left: Edward Lee, Prof Koos Terblans, Hanlie Grobler, and Nonkululeko Phili-Mgobhozi.
In its quest to inspire excellence, the University of the Free State (UFS) is in the process of installing state-of-the-art microscopy instruments that will differentiate them as leaders in materials research.

This project to the value of R65 million will not only promote research in, among others, the fields of Chemistry, Physics, Microbiology, Geology, Plant Sciences, Zoology, and Cardiothoracic Surgery, but it will also increase the number of research articles published. 

Prof Koos Terblans, Head of the Department of Physics and Director of the Centre for Microscopy at the UFS, indicates that the university recently purchased a high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and a focused ion beam secondary electron microscope. 

“The installation of the equipment that was delivered on 1 March 2021 will take approximately three to six months,” he says. 

Research at another level

The biggest instrument, the HRTEM, allows for direct imaging of the atomic structure of samples. This powerful tool will allow researchers to study the properties of materials on an atomic scale. It will, for instance, be used to study nanoparticles, semiconductors, metals, and biological material.

The instrument will also be used to optimise heat treatment of materials, as it can heat the sample up to 1000 °C while recording live images of the sample. “With this apparatus, the UFS is the only institution in South Africa that can perform this function,” says Prof Terblans. 

He says to install the apparatus, they had to dig a hole of 2 m deep in a special room where the machine was to stand. The machine was then mounted on a solid concrete block (4 m x 3 m x 2 m) in order to minimise vibration. The instrument also acquired a special air conditioner that minimises the movement of air in the room. 

The focused ion-beam secondary electron microscope that was purchased, is used together with the HRTEM, explains Prof Terblans. It is used to cut out samples on a microscopic level to place inside the HRTEM. 

Having access to both the HRTEM and the ion-beam secondary electron microscope places the UFS at another level with its research, says Prof Terblans. 

At the forefront of microscopy 

The third machine acquired, the SEM – which is an electron microscope – allows researchers to produce images of a sample by scanning the surface of the sample with a focused beam of electrons. Prof Terblans says this machine will be used to serve researchers in the biology field with high-resolution SEM photos. 

The UFS Centre for Microscopy can, besides UFS researchers, be accessed by researchers from the Central University of Technology, the national museum, and other research facilities. 

With this injection of state-of-the-art equipment, the UFS is now more than ever at the forefront of research in South Africa. 

Prof Koos Terblans (left) with Prof Jannie Swarts. Prof Swarts is from the Department of Chemistry and manager of the expensive equipment fund of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. They stand in front of the new HRTEM.
Prof Koos Terblans (left) with Prof Jannie Swarts. Prof Swarts is from the Department of Chemistry and manager of the expensive equipment fund of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. They stand in front of the new HRTEM.
The high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and a focused ion-beam secondary electron microscope.
The high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and a focused ion-beam secondary electron microscope.

News Archive

Dialogue between Science and Society series looks at forgiveness and reconciliation
2013-03-24

 

Taking part in the discussion on forgiveness and living reconciliation, were from left: Olga Macingwane, a survivor of the Worcester bombing of 1993; Dr Juliet Rogers, a Scholar on Remorse from the University of Melbourne in Australia and Dr Deon Snyman, Chairperson of the Worcester Hope and Reconciliation Process.
Photo: Mandi Bezuidenhout
24 March 2013

How do you, as a mother who lost her only daughter, forgive the man who claimed responsibility for the attack that killed her?  How do you forget his crime while travelling with him across the world?  

These were some of the questions posed to Jeanette Fourie at a Dialogue between Science and Society series on forgiveness and living reconciliation. Jeanette, whose daughter Lyndi was killed in an attack on the Heidelberg Pub in Cape Town in 1993, was one of three people telling their stories of forgiveness while dealing with traumatic experiences. 

Sitting next to Letlapa Mphahlele, the man who owned up to the attack that killed her daughter, Jeanette spoke about their story of forgiveness traveling the world together, spreading the message of forgiveness and conciliation. 

"Don't ever think you can forget, because that’s not possible. What you do with the pain is to find peace, and that's what forgiveness does. Forgiveness allows you to stop all the dialogue in your head on why he did it. You don't forget, you confront it and you deal with it." 

Letlapa, Director of Operations of Apla, the military wing of the PAC at the time of Lyndi's death, spoke about dealing with the response to his crime. "Sometimes you wish that you were not forgiven, because now you have the great burden of proving that you are worthy of forgiveness."

Also telling her story of forgiveness was Olga Macingwane, a survivor of the Worcester bombing of 1993 in which four people were killed and sixty-seven others injured. Four people were sent to prison. In 2009 Olga met one of the perpetrators, Stefaans Coetzee, and what came out of that meeting, is her story. 

"When I met Stefaans I was very angry, but when you sit down with somebody and listen to him or her, you find out what the reasons were that made him or her do something. I can say that I forgave him." 

Facilitating the conversation, Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor on Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, said the seminar was meant to get in touch with the truth that forgiveness is possible. 

"Before we had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa, the experts always said that forgiveness was not possible in these stories of the past. And then the TRC came into life as a response to mass atrocities. For the first time in the history of these traumatic experiences, of political traumas, we witness something that we have never seen.  Even us on the TRC, although it was framed as reconciliation, we never imagined there would actually be stories of forgiveness emerging out of that process, and then we witness that this too is possible." 

Others who took part in the two-hour-long seminar, were Dr Juliet Rogers, a Scholar on Remorse from the University of Melbourne in Australia and Dr Deon Snyman, Chairperson of the Worcester Hope and Reconciliation Process. They spoke about the dynamics behind the processes of engagement between victims/ survivors and perpetrators. 

The Dialogue between Science and Society series was co-hosted by the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice. 

 

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