01.11.2008

Scientific Images

During the last decade microscopy has gone through a series of major improvements. The demand of microscopy technique has increased a lot and has brought the limits in optical resolution of light microscopes, as described by Ernst Abbe, to be extended by new technologies like 4Pi, STED [3], deconvolution and others. Scientists want to resolve small compartments and structures within a cell and but at the same time need to visualize a large field of view to be able to understand the complexity of biological organisms. more01.11.2008

Air Quality Control for Hazardous Bio-Material

Airborne microorganisms are ubiquitously present in various indoor and outdoor environments. The potential implication of fungal contaminants in bio-aerosols on occupational health is recognized as a problem in several working environments. There is a concern on the exposure of workers to bio-aerosols especially in composting facilities, in agriculture, and in municipal waste treatment. The European Commission has therefore guiding rules protecting employees in the workplace from airborne biological hazards. more01.11.2008

Wide-field CARS-Microscopy

Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy is a branch of nonlinear microscopy that allows chemical imaging of targeted vibrational transitions in unstained samples. A resonantly enhanced blue-shifted CARS signal is generated from NIR or visible light, thus the method is more sensitive than normal Raman microscopy and offers better resolution than IR microscopy. CARS microscopes are mostly set up as confocal scanning microscopes, but wide-field approaches are possible as well.

Brief Introduction to CARS-microscopy
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3D Orientation Microscopy

Combining electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a focused ion beam (FIB) together into a single instrument enables three dimensional (3D) characterization of microstructure in crystalline materials. Combining these techniques together has enormous potential in materials science.

Electron Backscatter Diffraction
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Ultrasonic Nanofabrication with an AFM

Ultrasonic AFM may improve fabrication technologies on the nanometer scale. In the presence of ultrasonic vibration, hard surfaces can be indented and scratched with the tip of a soft cantilever, due to its inertia. Ultrasound reduces or even eliminates friction, and hence modifies the tip-nanoparticle-surface interactions in AFM manipulation. The subsurface sensitivity of the technique makes feasible the purposed manipulation of subsurface nanoscale features by ultrasonic actuation.

Ultrasonic Atomic Force Microscopies
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FIB Milling and Canneling

Focused Ion Beam instruments (FIB) are used for the preparation of electron microscopy specimens and for the fabrication of nano and micro components. Using polycrystalline Cu as an example, the influence of the crystallographic orientation, as obtained by EBSD, on the milling result is demonstrated. Different milling rates are due to the channeling effect. With some orientations a topography with characteristic features, like ripples, is generated, which were quantified using AFM images. more01.11.2008

Verifying Engineering at the Nanoscale

Packaging drugs and genes into nanoparticles enables drug or gene biodistribution to be favourably altered, with an ultimate therapeutic benefit [1-3]. To acquire such control on the in vivo fate of drugs and genes requires that such particles be precision engineered and electron microscopy is one of the techniques used to visualise and confirm the results of such engineering.

Methods
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Enabling 360 degree TEM/STEM of Nanoparticles

A new protocol for functionalizing sample holders has been developed for 360° TEM/STEM observation of nanoparticles and nanostructures. The three step process includes FIB milling to customize sample stub geometry, thin film deposition for substrate selection and subsequent chemical functionalization for nanoparticle adhesion. This protocol was used to determine the morphology and local material properties of individual Au/SiO2 core-shell nanoparticles used in a DNA detection assay.

Nanoscience Imaging & Spectroscopy
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