This article is about the adaptable and limitless use and power of the electron microscope.
In the late 1920s, electron microscope was invented and has been a most powerful and versatile tool for investigating the structure of cells, tissues, microorganisms and other microscopic objects. For the study of interfaces, boundaries, and various point, line, or planar defects, electron microscopy offers unique advantages over other techniques because individual defects and their interactions can be observed directly. With the advent of new lens designs and field-emitter technology which had greatly advanced in this age of technology, it is now possible to resolve spatial features as small as 0.2 nm and to study a sample area as small as 1 nm with high beam intensity with high accuracy and precision so microscopic organisms and bacteria or living tissues or cell can be thoroughly and accurately examined. These advantages are serious when the chemical nature of point or line defects or the composition of small precipitates is being investigated since these particles are microscopic or tiny.
At present time, the major theme of this research program is to study the microstructure of a wide variety of material, which now very effective in investigative science with the aide of the microscopes. These varieties of materials include metals, semiconductors, superconductors, ceramics, and polymers, which now very effective in investigative science with the aide of the microscope. Moreover, the defect structures which strongly affect the electrical, optical, mechanical, and other properties of materials those are of particular interest. The atomic scale imaging, electron diffraction, and nm-area chemical analysis is being used to explore the atomic, which can be seen under the electron microscope, and chemical nature of these defects. The microstructure revealed under a transmission electron microscope at magnifications up to more than a million times often provides important clues, which help us understand how different processes change the properties of materials.
Much of the microstructure and lithography research is completed in the newly established Electron Microscope Laboratory, which has a 40 kV scanning electron microscope, a second 200 kV high-resolution transmission electron microscope with a LaB6 emitter, and a sample preparation facility and which houses a 200 kV state-of-the-art transmission electron microscope equipped with a field emission gun, a parallel electron energy loss spectrometer, and an energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer.
The most useful in studies of materials’ surface morphology and the cross-sections of multilayer structures of cells, microscopic organisms, and microorganisms with great detail is the scanning electron microscope. The scanning electron microscope can also be used to write nanometer patterns in a resist layer. This e-beam lithography technique can be used in conjunction with plasma etching and thin film deposition processes to build nanostructures for Si or III-V quantum device studies and for developing various sub-quarter-micron processing technology. Read more