Steve Blankenship, Physicist

Steve Blankenship is a Physicist in the Electron Physics Group in CNST. He received a B.S. in Physics from the University of Mary Washington, and M.S. degree in Physics from Virginia Commonwealth University in the area of surface science. Steve Blankenship is an expert on experimental apparatus and instrument design using computer automated design (CAD) systems. Steve has contributed to the design of many of the scientific apparatus in CNST ranging from cryogenic inserts to complex vacuum systems. Steve utilizes his surface science background in designing many of the material evaporation systems that are utilized in projects such as scanning tunneling microscopy. Steve has designed custom electron-beam evaporation systems and operates full molecular beam epitaxy systems in these projects. While his 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. He is an expert at designing and building complex vacuum systems and custom vacuum components using the CoCreate CAD system OneSpace Designer. Steve assists CNST staff with all phases of experiment design, and is equally comfortable with building a whole system based on a rough sketch or helping with specific tasks such as producing shop drawings from a 3D model. Steve Blankenship is acknowledged on numerous publications of CNST for his contributions.