In Argonne, the country’s best microscopists are teaming up to build the highest resolution microscope in the world. The researchers in Argonne are also playing a lead role in the project. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences is funding these 25 million dollars to this microscopy project. This project is called the Transmission Electron Aberration corrected Microscope, or TEAM. The article explains that one of the goals is to achieve a resolution of 0.5-Angstrom resolution by the end of the decade. Another objective is to acquire three-dimensional images at atomic resolution. The article presents that today’s best microscopes can only image a two dimensional projection of columns of atoms. This new type of microscope is believed to be useful in assisting researchers studying the enhanced properties of nanomaterials that are built on the one billionth of ameter scale. There are five major electron microscopy centers are teaming up on this project. The TEAM includes the Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. The Argonne scientists are designing the Ultra corrector, which is the electron optical lens system that is the heart of the new approach. The electron microscopes allow scientists to see much deeper into materials than optical microscopes can. Optical microscopes use glass lenses and light, and this technology limit is about 0.5 micrometers. To move beyond this barrier, electron microscopes use electrons and magnetic fields instead of light and glass lenses. However, there are still problems. The TEAM leader explains the lens aberration is the most significant limitation to resolution in electron microscopy. According to optics theory, the resolution limit for electron microscopes is equivalent to the wave length of the electrons which is a few Pico meters, or 100 times smaller than an atom, for present instrumentation. The challenge for the developer of the Ultra corrector is to develop a complex system of lenses to correct the aberrated images. Without aberration correction, looking at samples would be like looking through the dimpled bottom of a wine bottle. Everything looks distorted. Improvements in aberration correction to get a clear view of the atoms are needed. Kabius is designing an electron optical system in cooperation with CEOS, a small German company, containing at least 13 lenses for the Ultra corrector. They are currently performing the calculations to determine the optimum arrangement of the lenses and determining the design feasibility. The TEAM project will build the first aberration-corrected microscope platform at Berkeley. That basic platform will be customized so each laboratory can build one for its particular research interests.Argonnes microscope will be optimized for studying nanomaterials in situ. One application is visualization of magnetic devices in operation to improve knowledge of magnetic elements in electronics and magnetic memory for computer data storage. The TEAM project is expected to yield such results as coming up with the first three dimensional atomic imaging of defect structures, the first atomic structure determination of a glass, understanding of magnetism and ferro electricity in nanostructures at the microscopic level, visualizing dislocation interactions in nanostructures under controlled stress, advancing interface science to the level of surface science, understanding grain boundary motion under stress in nanocrystals, and imaging defects in the oxygen sub-lattice of complex oxides.

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http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2004/MSD041112.html