November 17, 2009 –
Graduate student James Taing adjusts the new Ultra Plus scanning electron microscope.
Chemistry graduate student James Taing studies the chemical reactions and interactions between tiny silver particles that are only 30 nanometers in diameter. Since a nanometer is just 1/70,000th the diameter of a human hair, Taing can’t use just any microscope.
So he is especially pleased – as are a host of other researchers – that the Carl Zeiss Center of Excellence in the CALIT2 Building has a brand new Ultra Plus scanning electron microscope that enables such investigations. “I could not survive without it,” he says.
As a matter of fact, the new Ultra Plus is just one component of a complete instrumentation upgrade in the Carl Zeiss Center this year.
Both of the lab’s scanning electron microscopes, as well as all of the ancillary equipment, were replaced during 2009 with the newest models off the assembly line.
The Zeiss Center is a shared resource of UCI and instrument makers Carl Zeiss SMT, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Oxford Instruments and South Bay Technology. These industry partners, who share access to the lab with UCI users, are committed to maintaining state-of-the-art instrumentation.
The Evo LS 15 is part of a complete instrumentation upgrade in the Zeiss Center.
The first instrument to be replaced this year was the EVO® LS 15 multipurpose scanning electron microscope, which replaced an earlier model. Because it offers environmental capabilities, including “wet” imaging, the EVO is a valuable resource for life scientists examining all types of plant and animal life. It is also in demand for x-ray microanalysis tasks, thanks to another recent upgrade: the Thermo Fisher Scientific Ultra Dry x-ray analyzer.
This state-of-the-art instrument allows scientists to obtain “maps” of all the elements present in the sample at the point at which the beam is striking. It also has “measurably better low-energy performance,” allowing it to measure x-rays at lower energy than its predecessor, according to senior microscopist and lab manager John Porter. “This allows us to look at elements that generate x-rays at lower energies. We can look at boron or beryllium, as well as other light elements, that earlier-generation instruments couldn’t detect,” he adds. “It’s a significant improvement.”
The Ultra Plus, with a complete suite of imaging detectors, replaced the lab’s earlier-generation field-emission gun scanning electron microscope, the Ultra 55. The new ultra-high resolution SEM has a brighter beam, updated detectors, better resolution and a new gas-injection system that allows scientists to directly image insulating samples.
Ultra Plus is also part of a complete instrumentation upgrade in the Zeiss Center.
In addition, the Ultra Plus is now connected to a new image-acquisition system that can override the SEM’s own software to collect massive images – 32,000 x 32,000 pixels – an area more than 144 times bigger than the microscope could provide on its own. “The larger images are perfect to view on HIPerWall,” Porter says, referring to the 200-million pixel, grid-based display in CALIT2’s Visualization Lab.
Most recently, Oxford Instruments replaced an older generation x-ray detector with its state-of-the-art silicon drift detector, the X-Max 50. The new instrument has a 50 millimeter-square surface area, five times bigger than the previous model. It also creates elemental maps, but at a dramatically faster rate. “Now you can do in seconds what took hours just a few years ago,” says Porter.
“Since I’m looking at a lot of structures, I need this microscope. I can’t look at particles without it,” Taing says.
Oxford Instruments, as part of the upgrade, also replaced the lab’s electron backscatter diffraction camera with a newer, faster model that affords new options in measuring the orientation of crystals in a sample.
The Zeiss Center of Excellence, which opened in late 2005, is a unique model; it is one of only a few in the country that exist in partnership with instrument manufacturers. UCI researchers benefit from continuously upgraded equipment to keep them at the forefront of advanced materials research, while Zeiss and other corporate partners benefit from using the lab to demonstrate and further enhance the instruments’ capabilities.
The Zeiss Center, along with CALIT2’s Materials Characterization Center, comprises the Laboratory for Electron and X-ray Instrumentation (LEXI), a recharge facility managed by a faculty oversight committee. “Getting this suite of upgrades really expands our ability to provide state-of-the-art microscopy to a wide range of researchers,” says committee chair Daniel Mumm, associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science. “We can significantly extend the boundaries of nanotechnology and materials research.”
