The Advanced Microscopy Facility

The STEHM received the Macres Award for the Best Instrumentation/Software Paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011, sponsored by Oxford Instruments: I. Massmann, S. Uhlemann, H. Muller, P. Hartel, J. Zach, M. Haider, Y. Taniguchi, D. Hoyle, and R. Herring, Realization of the First Aplanatic Transmission Electron Microscope, Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011.

Welcome to the Advanced Microscopy Facility (AMF), an open user facility located in the Bob Wright Centre at the University of Victoria in beautiful British Columbia.

Several quick links are available with the icons below, but for more complete information use the navigation links at the top and left side of the page.

New user instructions Apply for training
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Below is an example of our capabilities: the first prototype of an electron biprism for use in the STEHM, fabricated with our FIB-2100 FIB, imaged with our S-4800 SEM. Sample is a 200 nm thick SiN window in a TEM grid, coated both sides with 2 nm Ti and 20 nm of Au on UVic Chemistry's Angstrom Engineering electron beam metal deposition system. The electron biprism is 2.75 micron long, 50 nanometers wide, and approximately 150 nanometers thick.


Image of interest - prototype number one of an electron biprism fabricated with FB-2100 FIB.  FIB work by Adam Schuetze, SEM image by Elaine Humphrey

Electron biprism fabricated on our Hitachi FB-2100 focused ion beam system and imaged on our Hitachi S-4800 SEM. FIB work by Adam Schuetze, SEM image by Elaine Humphrey. See more images in this series in our gallery.

Can you guess what these are?


Lilly pollen, Zoea larva, an ant's anus

SEM images Courtesy of Dr. Elaine Humphrey

Answers

Click the tabs to check your answers.

Left

Pollen grains have unique structures which allow you to identify the species they belong to. If you said lilly pollen, then you were correct!

Center

Did you guess zoea larva? This is the larva (called a zoea - pronounced zo-ee-a) of a true crab, found in the plankton of English Bay near Vancouver.

Right

Isn't it pretty. It's an ant's anus!

AMF news and events

The Hitachi S-4800 SEM is down for maintenance. We hope to have a technician on site later this week.


STEHM UPDATE:

The STEHM has begun its long trip to Victoria, and is due to arrive Mid April 2012!

In Germany, the correctors have been installed and tested on the HF-3300V STEHM. It has been dissassembled into boxes, and has begun its trip to Canada. Next stop, Victoria! Read about the STEHM in an article in The Times Colonist.


For FIB users needing an easy way to locate a fabrication point on a gold coated glass slide at a later time, either when switching the sample to the SEM, or back into the FIB, we now have an Excel spreadsheet that will help. See the downloads section for the FB-2100 FIB in the instruments section.


When booking the FIB, please book time at earliest time slot available on the day you want to use. Please avoid booking sessions in the middle or end of the day, as this breaks up the usable time on the instrument.


The next SEM workshop is May 15th, 2012. Sign up with our online web form, in person, or by email.


The next FIB workshop is May 8th, 2012. Sign up with our online web form, in person, or by email.


For FIB users cutting features in SiN windows, we now have an Excel spreadsheet for computing the center coordinates of an arbitrarily rotated square. See the downloads section for the FB-2100 FIB in the instruments section.


For FIB users cutting patterns on gold coated glass slides, we now have an Excel spreadsheet for automatically computing focus values, as a function of position. See the downloads section for the FB-2100 FIB in the instruments section.


Read about the Advanced Microscopy Facility in The Ring, the University of Victoria community newspaper.


Read about the Advanced Microscopy Facility in the National Post article published on May 28, 2011.

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