2011 Innovation Awards
devices, nanoparticles, and thin films by simultaneous optical excitation (including heating) and spectroscopy, electrical and optical measurement, stress-strain measurement, and atomic imaging of the surface and bulk of the sample. Te device also allows cathodoluminescence imaging of tissue labeled with quantum dots or nanofluorochromes. Applications extend to time-resolved TEM in which pulsed laser light excites a sample that is probed with a pulsed or conventional imaging electron beam.
Model 2540 In Situ Environmental Heating Holder E.A. Fischione Instruments, Inc. Developers: Pushkarraj V. Deshmukh and Paul E. Fischione
Te Model 2540 Environmental Heating Holder
In-Situ is
a modular unit designed for in-situ experiments within a transmission electron microscope (TEM). It consists of a novel TEM sample holder incorporating optical components to transmit and focus a beam of electromagnetic radiation onto a
sample held within a window-type environmental cell. De- pending on the wavelength, for example, infrared or visible, the radiation can be used to heat the specimen or to optically excite the specimen for various applications. Te window membrane thickness can be varied based on the desired gas pressure or image resolution. A gas-flow mechanism circulates a mixture of up to four different gases through the environmental cell. Gas circulation can be controlled to attain pressures as high as 1 atmosphere around the specimen. Te gas path length can be varied from 0–250 µm to minimize electron scattering and to attain high image resolution. Te holder tip is only 2.25 mm in height, making it versatile enough to be used with a large number of TEM polepiece configurations. Te Model 2540 addresses two major aspects of in-situ
microscopy: in-situ heating and the in-situ environmental cell. Traditional heating holders employ resistive heating coils to elevate specimen temperature; whereas, in the Model 2540, electromagnetic radiation is focused directly onto the specimen to heat it. Tis helps overcome the limitations of traditional heating technology: long heating response time, the inability to heat local areas within the sample, and a maximum temperature limited to about 1200°C. Te Model 2540 also has advantages over the dedicated environmental transmission electron microscope (ETEM): it can be used on most commercial TEMs, it can attain pressures of up to 1 atmosphere, it is sealed to prevent contamination of polepieces, and it has a variable gas path length. Te last feature allows a shorter path length when high-resolution imaging is required. Applications include analysis of catalysts during reactions and studying the growth of nanostructures such as nanowires.
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ASTAR TEM Automated Crystal Orientation and Phase Mapping
NanoMEGAS SPRL University of Grenoble/CNRS Grenoble INP-UJF
Developers: Edgar Rauch, Daniel Bultreys, and Stavros Nicolopoulos
Te ASTAR technique allows
automatic crystallographic orien- tation and phase mapping (sim- ilar to electron backscatter diffraction in the SEM) using template-matching analysis of acquired diffraction patterns in the TEM. Electron diffraction spot
patterns are collected sequentially with an external ultra-fast CCD camera, while an area on the sample is scanned by the focused electron beam that is also being precessed around the direction of incidence at each point. Tis external CCD camera, with 250 × 250 pixel image size and 8-bit dynamic range, is mounted on the front of the TEM screen and can record rapidly changing diffraction patterns appearing on the TEM fluorescent screen as fast as 180 frames/sec. During the scanning and precession of the primary electron beam, thousands of ED spot patterns are recorded and stored in the memory of a dedicated computer. Each one of the experimental ED spot patterns is compared to one or more sets of thousands of computer-generated ED spot patterns (so-called templates) using
template-matching cross-correlation techniques.
Templates are generated from known cell parameters of the crystal phases in the sample. A typical map of 500 × 300 pixels takes about 5–10 minutes. Te ASTAR device allows crystallographic orientation and phase identification over a region of interest up to 10 μm2, with a step size ranging from 1 nm to 20 nm depending on the microscope probe-forming capabilities (FEG or LaB6). Tis TEM phase-orientation mapping technique
(EBSD-like information) has two main advantages over the traditional EBSD-SEM technique. First, it is possible to obtain phase and orientation (texture) maps from any type of crystalline material that can be made thin enough to diffract in the electron beam. Second, the spatial resolution of the TEM technique is an order of magnitude better than EBSD-SEM because the TEM spot size can be as small as 1 nm for an FEG-TEM/STEM.
Nikon N-SIM Super Resolution Microscope Nikon Instruments, Inc. Developer: Nikon Engineering Department
Te N-SIM Super Resolution Microscope exceeds the
standard resolution capabilities of conventional optics at a speed that allows observation of dynamic live cell events in
www.microscopy-today.com • 2011 September
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