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So this is what a half-angstrom-resolution TEM image looks like |
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Sep 17, 2007 at 07:02 AM |
Ever wonder what an electron microscope image resolved to a half-angstrom looks like? Yunno, something about one-fortieth the diameter of a DNA helix or a quarter the size of a carbon atom.
Thanks to FEI and the rest of the TEAM team, researchers can now "see" atoms coming together in a hitherto-unprecedented fashion.
Earlier this month, FEI, CEOS, and some U.S. Department of Energy labs said they had recorded the highest-resolution images ever using (S)TEM microscopy techniques, developed as part of the Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope (aforementioned TEAM) project. A specially equipped instrument combining TEM and scanning TEM enabled the feat.
FEI's Titana S/TEM tool, when fitted with two CEOS-designed spherical aberration correctors, showed markedly improved imaging and other capabilities. The company says the special TEAM 'scope is "the result of a series of new technology breakthroughs, providing for higher stability than previously possible and incorporating the newly designed aberration correctors. TEM images obtained show an information transfer down to 0.5 angstrom. In STEM mode, frequencies better than 0.5 angstrom were recorded."
The image above, provided by FEI, shows a high-resolution TEM image of the dumbbell structure (0.14 nm) of germanium. What is revealed? That interatomic distances can be measured with ultrahigh precision. The inserted intensity profile chart "proves that the contrast level in between the germanium dumbbell reaches the base level of the larger distances of the structure," the project collaborators say.
While the shot may not be the sharpest or sexiest e-micrograph, the knowledge that what you're seeing represents the subatomic scale boggles the noggin, another sign of the nano times we live in.
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