Basic physics concepts at high school applied to material characterization

QUIROGA B.; LIMANDRI S.; OLIVARES C.; SUAREZ S.

Córdoba

Congreso; International Conference on Physics Education; 2014

Bringing high school students to the techniques currently used for material characterization gives them a vision of science compatible with actual research activities and introduces simple concepts that seem, in a first view, distant to the real world. One of the problems related with teaching basic physics concepts in secondary school is related to the lack of cutting edge applications of these concepts. This is not only referred to the contents that are part of the programme of studies, but also to the way in which they are transmitted. To address this problem, it is recommended the promotion of initiatives attempting to attract the students to the physics world. In this sense it is important to give, to the students, direct experiences that allow them to stay in contact with day-to-day scientific problems that usually take place in laboratories. Generally, the concepts given at the secondary school tend to be reinforced by everyday-examples or systems whose behavior can be easily explained, modeled and interpreted. But, how far are these examples of the activity of the researcher? The aim of this work is to show that basic concepts can be used to understand experimental techniques currently used in materials characterization. We will show how, from simple concepts, the student can interpret RBS (Rutherford Backscattering) and ERDA (Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis) experiments to determine the elemental composition of different materials at surfaces, and as a function of the depth at the nanoscale, in solids. In addition, we show that other ion beam techniques such as PIXE (Particle Induced X-Ray Emission) and NRA (Nuclear Reaction Analysis) that involve quantum fundamentals can also be understood with simple concepts of classical physics.