MRL TEAM invention nets R&D 100 award

The Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope (TEAM) Electron Microscope Stage, co-invented by researchers at the university's Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), has been recognized with a R&D 100 award. Presented annually by R&D Magazine, the award salutes the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year.

The TEAM Electron Microscope Stage is used to hold and position samples inside electron microscopes with unprecedented stability, position-control accuracy, and range of motion. The unit was invented by MRL staff members Ivan Petrov (PI), Todor Donchev, and Eric Olson, in collaboration with researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The FEI Company, and Attocube Systems.
 
"The contributions of Illinois through MRL to this project and to electron microscopy in general have been admirable," said Ilesanmi Adesida, dean of the College of Engineering. "I look forward to future breakthroughs that the TEAM and the advanced electron microscopy stage will produce."
 
According to its inventors, the TEAM stage can be used with any electron microscope to study the microstructure of materials, which is key to understanding how to improve the performance, environmental impact, and cost- and energy-efficiency of countless technologies that have improved modern society's quality of life.
 
As the demand for higher-performing materials increases in many industries, such as electronics, transportation, chemicals, renewable energy, and biomedical fields, researchers need electron microscopes with resolving powers of 0.5 angstrom or finer to see all physical and chemical properties of complex microscopic objects.
 
"The immediate impact of this invention is nanotechnology," explained Jian-Min Zuo, an associate professor in materials science and engineering at Illinois. "Nanotechnology relies on nanometer scaled structures with the number of atoms ranging anyway from hundreds to tens of thousands. The development of truly successful nanotechnology has been hampered by our ability to see all these atoms.
 
"Just imagine a builder who cannot see the structure he or she has built him or herself," Zuo added. "We finally have the necessary tools to achieve atomic-resolution tomography. The future impact of this invention will go beyond nanotechnology. Just like powerful telescopes humans have built and put on top of mountains and in space that have opened up (our) imagination and vision, the new atomic-scale tomography stage and the new microscopes now allow us to peer into the quantum world of 3D atomic structure."
 
An electron microscope stage must do two things extremely well. First, it must hold a tiny, fragile sample so the user can move it around smoothly in at least five dimensions to select a region of interest on the sample (x-, y-axis motions), bring the sample into focus (z-axis motion), and adjust the projection direction for the desired imaging condition (two orthogonal tilting axes α, β). Second, to capture a clear image, the stage must be able to stay perfectly still so that residual vibrating or creeping motions amount to no more than a small fraction of the size of a single atom. The need for both five-axis motion and ultrahigh stability has driven the development and refinement of mechanical microscope-stage designs for the past 50 years, but it has been difficult to find a balance between them, resulting in relatively narrow limits of motion range. As a result, it has been impossible to spin a sample around inside a microscope to image it from any desired perspective, essential for 3D imaging.
 
The TEAM Stage designers successfully overcame the limitations of conventional mechanical design, creating the first electron microscope stage in which all motions are controlled entirely by piezo technology. With its compact size resulting from a minimal number of moving parts, the TEAM Stage is the first electron microscope stage to be housed completely within the vacuum column of an electron microscope. As a result, the TEAM stage's stability with respect to vibrations and noise is 10 times better than competing stages. The TEAM stage is also the first stage to combine ultrahigh stability with wide-angle, double-tilt positioning--all key features enabling 3D atomic-resolution tomography.
 
The TEAM Stage was created in support of the TEAM Project, an international collaboration of top-ranking microscopy programs from national labs supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. This collective approach taps the expertise of researchers specializing in materials sciences and microscopy, as well as physicists, engineers, and designers.

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Contact: Contact: Ivan Petrov, Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, 217/333-8396.

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