I just received notice from the University of Victoria that assembly of the world’s most powerful microscope is complete and that the STEHM (Scanning Transmission Electron Holography Microscope) is operational.
This thing is powerful enough to resolve atoms, which is pretty amazing if you think about it. If they send me a picture taken by this by this seven-tonne beast I’ll be sure to post it here.
This is the offical press release:
The world’s most powerful microscope, which resides in a specially constructed room at the University of Victoria, has now been fully assembled and tested, and has a lineup of scientists and businesses eager to use it.
The seven-tonne, 4.5-metre tall Scanning Transmission Electron Holography Microscope (STEHM), the first such microscope of its type in the world, came to the university in parts last year,. A team from Hitachi, which constructed the ultra high-resolution, ultra-stable instrument, spent one year painstakingly assembling the STEHM in a carefully controlled lab in the basement of the Bob Wright Centre.
The wait was worth it, says Rodney Herring, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of UVic’s Advanced Microscopy Facility.
With assembly complete, Herring and his team were able to finally test the microscope recently. They say the results are the start of a new era in scientific research.
“The STEHM will be used by local, regional, national and international scientists and engineers for a plethora of research projects relevant to the advancement of mankind,” says Herring. “This enables us to see the unseen world.”
Herring viewed gold atoms through the microscope at a resolution of 35 picometres. One picometre is a trillionth of a metre. This resolution is much better than the previous best image with 49-picometre resolution taken at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California, and is about 20 million times human sight.
The STEHM allows researchers to see the atoms in a manner never before possible. It has full analytical capabilities that can determine the types and number or elements present, and high-resolution cameras for collecting data.
It will be used by researchers of many science and engineering disciplines for projects requiring knowledge of small atomic scale structures (nanoscience) and nanotechnology. Dr. Vincenzo Grillo from the Istituto Nanoscienze Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche in Modena will be the first visiting researcher later this month.
Local scientists and businesses are also eager to use it. Ned Djilali, a UVic professor of mechanical engineering, is working with the National Research Council, Ballard Power Systems in Vancouver and Mercedes-Benz on fuel cell research. The STEHM “opens up entirely new possibilities” in fuel cell technology, says Djilali.
Redlen Technologies, a local company that manufactures high resolution semiconductor radiation detectors that are used for such things as nuclear cardiology, CT scanning, baggage scanning and dirty bomb detection, has been waiting for the STEHM to open for the company’s research and development.
The STEHM microscope is supported by $9.2 million in funding from the government of Canada through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the BC Knowledge Development Fund and UVic, as well as significant in-kind support from Hitachi.
Herring will give details of the results at a microscopy conference this week at UVic, as well as during a talk Thursday, June 20, that is open to the public. It is from 4:30 to 5 p.m. at the Bob Wright Centre, in Flury Hall, room B150.
And this is the backgrounder:
The Scanning Transmission Electron Holography Microscope (STEHM) is the highest resolution microscope ever built and the only one of its kind in the world. It’s arrival makes the University of Victoria a global leader in the competitive field of advanced microscopy.
Unlike conventional microscopes, which use light to peer at specimens, the STEHM uses an electron beam and holography techniques to observe the inside of materials and their surfaces to an expected resolution smaller than the size of an atom.
The STEHM will see materials beyond the nanoscale to the picoscale. A nanometer is one-billionth of a metre, while a picometre is one-trillionth of a metre. Atoms are typically between 62 and 520 picometres in diameter.
In the world of advanced microscopy, the quality of images depends on the electron source and its lenses. The electron source for the STEHM is about 30 times brighter than existing conventional electron sources. And while standard high-resolution microscopes have about 20 lenses for imaging the specimen, the STEHM has 50.
The STEHM will not only see individual atoms, but it will indicate what type of atoms they are. It also features an electron vortex beam, which researchers can use like tweezers to manipulate individual atoms in a specimen.
The microscope itself is a 4.5-metre tall cylinder encased in metal shielding to block magnetic fields. It has a footprint of six square metres and weighs seven tonnes.
The microscope is so huge that researchers will climb a stepladder to insert their specimens through a tiny airlock into the vacuum of the column. They’ll then leave the room, wait for the air currents in the room to calm, and then operate the microscope remotely from an adjoining room.
The microscope is so sensitive that its image could be affected by little more than a passing cloud. For this reason, it is housed in the basement of UVic’s science building in a special self-contained, extra-tall room that is anchored to bedrock and encased in eight inches of insulation sandwiched between layers of galvanized steel.
The outer walls of the room are shielded with aluminum to block electromagnetic waves, and the inner walls are lined with acoustic and cooling panels to minimize vibration and control temperature variation to no more than 0.1 degrees per hour. The room is also pressure-controlled.
The STEHM was specially built in Japan for UVic by Hitachi High Technologies Canada. It was then transported to Germany where special lenses to correct for image distortion—known as aberration correctors—were installed by CEOS, a company that develops advanced optical components for electron microscopes.
The STEHM is expected to be operational by this fall. Researchers from all branches of science around the world are already vying for time on the STEHM to investigate new materials in areas as diverse as manufacturing, electronics, biotechnology, fuel cell technology, construction and defence.
The STEHM microscope facility is supported by $9.2 million in funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the BC Knowledge Development Fund and UVic, as well as significant in-kind support from Hitachi.