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A Novel Heating Technology for Ultra-High Resolution Imaging in Electron Microscopes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 June 2009

Lawrence F. Allard*
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Div., Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831
Wilbur C. Bigelow
Affiliation:
Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Steven A. Bradley
Affiliation:
UOP LLC, 50 Algonquin Road, Des Plaines, IL 60017
Jingyue(Jimmy) Liu
Affiliation:
Center for Nanoscience, and Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Missouri-St.Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63121

Extract

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Capabilities for in-situ studies of materials at elevated temperatures and under gaseous environments have received increasing attention in recent years [1]. With the advent of electron microscopes that provide routine imaging at the atomic level (e.g. aberration-corrected TEM and STEM instruments), it is of particular interest to be able to record images at high temperatures while retaining the inherent resolution of the microscope; that is, the resolution is not limited by drift in the heating holder or other instabilities associated with its operation. A number of commercial and experimental heating devices have been used over the years; some holders are designed with miniature furnaces that heat entire grids [2], while a more recent development used a tiny spiral filament coated with a carbon film as the heater element [3]. These devices, while very useful for some applications (particularly in “environmental microscopes” that employ differential pumping to allow gases at some elevated pressure to be injected around the specimen), are invariably not as stable as might be desired for sub-Ångström imaging experiments. They are also limited by the speed at which the sample can be heated to temperature for stable operation. In collaboration with Protochips Inc. (Raleigh, NC), our laboratory is developing a novel new technology for in-situ heating experiments that overcomes a number of performance problems associated with standard heating stage technologies [4].

Type
Instrumentation
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2009