Design of a Virtual Laboratory for Analyzing Nanoscale Magnetic Materials

Abstract

As the advance of technology, the manufacturing process of materials has moved forward from the scale of micrometer to sub-micrometer and nanometer. Combining nanotechnology and traditional magnetic materials, nanoscale magnetic materials can be created for applications in biomedical examination and therapy as well as data recording to increase the storage space of a computer. The topic of using the magnetic force microscope (MFM) to exam a material’s magnetic field distribution can often be found in nanotechnology courses. Due to the cost of equipment and difficulty of its operation, the teacher can only teach students with an instructional video most of the time instead of using a real MFM to conduct experiments. As a result, students may not fully understand its principle and operating procedure. In this study, a virtual MFM laboratory was designed as an app for execution on tablet computers to increase students’ learning interest and motivation. Without using expensive equipment, they can understand the magnetic field distribution of materials by using the virtual MFM to examine different samples provided in the virtual laboratory. A teaching experiment was also conducted to compare the learning effectiveness of using an instructional video and the virtual MFM laboratory. The experimental results showed that using the virtual MFM laboratory was more effective than using the instructional video; the questionnaire results also revealed that most students had positive attitudes toward the virtual MFM laboratory and they thought it could enhance their learning interest and motivation.