Steve Blankenship

Steve Blankenship is an Instrumentation Specialist in the Electron Physics Group in the CNST. He received a B.S. in Physics from the University of Mary Washington, and a M.S. degree in Physics from Virginia Commonwealth University for research in surface science. Steve is an expert on computer automated design (CAD) of experimental apparatus and instruments, including complex vacuum systems and custom vacuum components designed using the CoCreate CAD system OneSpace Designer. He has contributed to the design of many of the scientific apparatus in the CNST, ranging from cryogenic inserts to complex vacuum systems. Steve assists CNST staff with all phases of experiment design, and is equally comfortable building a whole system based on a rough sketch or helping with specific tasks such as producing shop drawings from a 3D model. While Steve's main expertise is in designing and building surface instrumentation and thin-film and molecular beam epitaxy systems, he also has a broad range of skills that can be applied to any experimental situation. His contributions to the CNST research program are widely acknowledged in CNST publications.

• Real-Space Imaging of Structural Transitions in the Vortex Lattice of V₃Si, C.E. Sosolik, J. A. Stroscio, M. D. Stiles, E. W. Hudson, S. R. Blankenship, A. P. Fein, R. J. Celotta, Physical Review Letters 68(14), 140503-1 (2003).
• A Facility for Nanoscience Research: An Overview, J. A. Stroscio, E. W. Hudson, S. R. Blankenship, R. J. Celotta, and A. P. Fein, in Proceedings of the SPIE, Nanostructure Science, Metrology, and Technology, 4608, ed. by M.C. Peckerar and M.T. Postek, Gaithersburg, MD, (2002) p. 112.
• A Low Temperature STM System for the Study of Quantum and Spin Electronic Systems, J. A. Stroscio, R. J. Celotta, S. R. Blankenship, E. W. Hudson, and A. P. Fein, in Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Quantum Functional Devices, November 15, 2000.
• Electronic Structure and Crystalline Coherence in Fe/Si Multilayers, J. A. Carlisle, S. R. Blankenship, R. N. Smith, A. Chaiken, R. P. Michel, T. Van Buuren, L. J. Terminello, J. J. Jia, D. L. Callcott, and D. L. Ederer, Journal of Cluster Science 10(4), 591-599 (1999).
• Reconstructions of Ag on High-Index Silicon Surfaces, S. R. Blankenship, H. H. Song, A. A. Baski, and J. A. Carlisle, Jounal of Vacuum Science & Technology A 17(4), 1615-1620 (1999).