Materials engineering student Christopher Lo inserts a piece of plastic into a sputter coating machine in preparation for use in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) during his MATE 401- Materials Characterization Techniques class. The machine puts a very thin film of gold on the plastic for use in the SEM, which requires material to be highly conductive. MATE 401 allows students to gain hands-on experience with materials characterization instruments, such as scanning electron microscopy, light optical microscopy, x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy.