MicroscopyInnovations 2015 Microscopy Today Innovation Awards
T e editors of Microscopy Today congratulate the winners of the sixth Microscopy Today Innovation Awards competition. T e ten innovations described below advance microscopy in several areas: light microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, electron microscopy, and hybrid microscopy-analysis methods. T ese innovations will make microscopy and microanalysis more powerful, more fl exible, more productive, and easier to accomplish.
Spero™ Infrared Microscope Daylight Solutions, Inc.
Developers: Matthew Barre, Miles Weida, Jeremy Rowlette, David Arnone, Benjamin Bird, Edeline Fotheringham, and Timothy Day
microscope for collecting analytical data by means of spectral imaging, allowing the user to visualize and identify varying chemical content across a sample with higher spatial resolution, larger fields of view, and shorter acquisition times than existing instruments. Spero is based on Daylight Solutions’s core technology of quantum cascade lasers (QCL). These are compact, semiconductor lasers
Spero™ is a laser-based infrared
that are broadly tunable across the “fingerprint region” of the mid-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, from 5.5 to 11.0 micrometers (1800 cm -1 to 900 cm -1 ). Infrared light at a single wavelength is transmitted through the sample, and various regions of the sample absorb different portions of the light, providing a 2D spatial map of the sample absorption at that wavelength. The laser is then tuned to an adjacent wavelength, and another image is collected. The resulting hyperspectral data cube stores an entire IR spectrum at each pixel, and this spectrum can be compared against existing spectral libraries to identify the chemical content of each feature in the image. Chemical imaging can be done in real-time by means of Spero’s Live Mode with the camera running at video frame rates (30 frames per second). T is allows the user to view the spatial distribution of specifi c absorption features, even of dynamic samples such as fl uidic fl ow, chemical reactions, or living organisms. T e fundamental innovation over previous technologies is the use of a tunable QCL illumination source for an IR
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microscope. Current IR microscopes are based on Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) technology, employing a relatively weak broadband illumination source, known as a globar. T e Spero microscope provides rapid, high-resolution chemical imaging in minutes that previously took several hours with existing bench-top instruments. Even trips to a synchrotron facility are no longer required because QCL illumination is orders of magnitude brighter than that of a synchrotron. T e Spero IR microscope is already being used in important applications including mapping of ingredients in pharmaceu- ticals, detecting contaminants in semiconductor manufacturing processes, analyzing the chemistry of polymer fi lms, and screening to detect the earliest stages of cancer in both tissue biopsies and blood serum.
Model 1080 PicoMill ® TEM Specimen Preparation System
E.A. Fischione Instruments, Inc. Developers: Michael Boccabella and Paul Fischione
Advances in aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy (TEM) demand specimens of higher quality in order to obtain the best high-resolution images. Increased use of focused ion beam (FIB) systems for
the preparation of TEM specimens led Fischione Instruments to develop devices to enhance the quality of both conventional and FIB-prepared specimens. T e Model 1080 PicoMill
specimen preparation system adds improved imaging capabil- ities, precise endpoint detection, and better connectivity to the TEM.
T e PicoMill provides fi nal thinning of specimens using
site-specifi c, ultra-low-energy, inert gas ion milling. T e system’s submicron ionbeam diameter, coupled with a low milling angle, allows targeting of a specifi c area of interest, prevents redeposition of material onto the specimen surface, and produces uniform thinning of dissimilar materials. A scanning electron beam provides SEM imaging of the lamella (using either backscattered electrons or secondary electrons) even during ion milling, while the secondary electron detector (SED) also provides ion-beam imaging. An electron detector beneath the specimen enables endpoint detection and quantifi cation of electron transparency. T e PicoMill system includes a TEM-style, side-entry goniometer that uses a specially designed specimen holder compatible with most TEMs. T is means that a specimen can be transported quickly and safely from the PicoMill system to the TEM without handling.
doi: 10.1017/S1551929515000814
www.microscopy-today.com • 2015 September ® TEM
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