Nanoscale materials represent a class of substances that approach the size of individual atoms, about 0.1 to 10 nanometers, in at least one dimension. These materials exhibit properties that are unique from larger scale substances, and they are essential to advancing a wide array of technologies, from magnetic data-storage systems to superconducting quantum computers to biomaterials and biomedical applications.
To study and use these materials, tools are required to examine them at the atomic level while minimizing any disturbance to their structure. Electron microscopy, which uses electron beams to “see” atoms, is one of the fundamental means by which the structures of nanoscale materials can be studied.
Current designs of high-resolution transmission electron microscopes require a lens to focus an electron beam on the specimen surface, said University of Illinois Chicago physicist Robert Klie.
“A side effect of this design is that the sample material is inadvertently exposed to a high magnetic field, so turning the lens off to eliminate the magnetic field when studying magnetic or superconducting materials makes atomic-resolution analysis impossible,” he said.
UIC researchers will soon have a new tool built to overcome the side effect.
Through an $4 million National Science Foundation grant, UIC will be home to the world’s first analytical, aberration-corrected and monochromated transmission electron microscope with a magnetic field-free objective lens. UIC, through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, will contribute the required cost-share of 30%, or $1.7 million, toward the total instrument cost. OVCR will also contribute nearly $4M to renovate space in the Center for Structural Biology not only to house this microscope, but to refresh some of their other shared research facilities.
“The instrument acquired through this grant has a new lens design, providing a magnetic-field-free sample region and, when combined with a nearly mono-energetic electron source, allows for atomic-resolution imaging as well as chemical analysis of these critical materials,” said Klie, UIC professor of physics and the project’s principal investigator.
The instrument will also be equipped with several sample or specimen stages that allow researchers to heat, cool or expose materials to liquids or a controlled magnetic field. The monochromated electron source will also allow for new spectroscopy measurements of materials that undergo changes in structure or properties, including magnetic ordering or superconducting transition, at atomic resolution.
Students and scientists at UIC, and across the Midwest and U.S., will also benefit from the microscope acquisition, according to the researchers. The only other microscope similar to this in the world is currently at the University of Tokyo. Read more.
