The University of Manchester has received a portion of a £4.5 million grant based upon its microscopy research capability. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has awarded the grant to the SuperSTEM consortium comprising the Universities of Manchester, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and headed by the University of Leeds.
Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) utilizes computer-administered lens correctors to create a device of electrons smaller than a single atom’s width. This probe is utilized to picture nanostructures under atomic projection and also studies the atom’s type and chemical bonding. Aberration-corrected STEM is an important instrument to study the properties of nanotechnological equipment and nanostructures.
The new EPSRC National Facility will offer access to sophisticated tools for UK scientists funded by EPSRC and also for commercial and non-EPSRC users that come under the facility’s utilization limits. SuperSTEM1 was the first tool developed in 2001 to integrate an innovative lens system to provide lens aberration correction. An improved correction tool known as SuperSTEM2 was introduced later. Both devices are installed at the SuperSTEM core site located at the STFC Daresbury Laboratories and offer a broad array of atomic resolution analysis and imaging techniques at a variety of incident electron beam energies.
The SuperSTEMs offer an advanced imaging technique called atomic resolution high angle dark annular field (HAADF) imaging, which delivers an exact picture of the atomic structure of a material and is ideal for studying the structures of nanomaterials. When used with atomic resolution electron loss spectroscopy, identification, detection and site specification of single atoms can be done, allowing the imaging of a single impurity atom. At Manchester University, scientists have used this method to study several innovative materials, including rare-earth doped Si-nanocrystals, nanomaterials for green energies, novel functional ceramics and specially doped carbon nanotubes, specifically, graphene.
Source: http://www.manchester.ac.uk