Equipment and Materials ♦ news digest
The resulting images accurately represent the actual structure of the sample and give scientists new capabilities to understand bonding between atoms.
“Historically, a major problem with drift has been that you need to have a reference material in any nanoscale image, so that you can tell how the image has been distorted,” LeBeau says. “This technique makes that unnecessary. That means we can now look at completely unknown samples and discover their crystalline structures - which is an important step in helping us control a material’s physical properties.”
The paper, “Revolving scanning transmission electron microscopy: correcting sample drift distortion without prior knowledge,” by Xiahan Sang et al will be published in the March issue of Ultramicroscopy.
There is a patent pending on the technique.
Taking electron microscopy to the next level
A new technique is said to be the only one capable of exploring materials in the range of one picometre
Their technique is said to be the only one capable of exploring materials in the range of one picometre, equal to one hundredth of the diameter of a hydrogen atom - a trillionth of a metre. This enables the motions of each atom and its interactions to be imaged with a hitherto undreamt-of precision.
The nomination was put forward by Achim Bachem, Chairman of the Board of Research Centre Julich and Vice President of the Helmholtz Association of German National Research Centres. In his view, the laureates’ contribution “arrives at a time where the developing nanosciences, in particular physics and chemistry as well as the related nanotechnologies, are calling for high- resolution instrumentation for research, synthesis and validation of technologies.”
Imaging atoms to predict properties
German researchers Haider, Rose and Urban share the ‘Frontiers of Knowledge Award’ for inventing the subatomic precision microscope, which opens up new developments in the nanoscience field.
When others had given up on the goal of achieving subatomic precision, the three formed a team, secured funding and, within a decade, had solved the problem and designed a working prototype.
The image obtained through aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy makes it possible to observe in detail the behaviours of atoms and correlate them with the physical properties of materials.
Several hundred of these microscopes are now in use around the world in materials, nanoelectronic and
Haider, Rose and Urban’s microscope fulfils one of physicists’ most cherished ambitions: to determine, from the imaging of atoms, which behaviour corresponds to a particular property, like conductivity or hardness.
And then by emulating this behaviour, to achieve the property in question. This, in turn, will facilitate the design of custom-made materials, opening up multiple new applications in electronics and biomedicine.
In the words of the jury’s citation, aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy - the name of Haider, Rose and Urban’s technique - “in now a key technique in many areas of fundamental and applied science,” enabling scientists to “study the consequences of subtle atomic shifts in the properties of materials, and dynamics
January / February 2014
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 141 molecular biology research.
The sixth annual BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category went to German physicists Maximilian Haider, Harald Rose and Knut Urban for “greatly enhancing the resolving power of electron microscopy by developing aberration-corrected electron optics, a breakthrough enabling subatomic precision.”
The three researchers took on an obstacle challenge - the low resolution of electron microscopy - that was barring the way to progress in nanotechnology and was also viewed as largely insurmountable. In fact, state agencies decided to suspend official funding of the field, just as the new laureates were joining forces to find a solution. In less than a decade, they not only had a theoretical solution but also a prototype microscope.
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