[en] The material characterization toolbox has recently experienced a number of parallel revolutionary advances, foreshadowing a time in the near future when material scientists can quantify material structure evolution across spatial and temporal space simultaneously. This will provide insight to reaction dynamics in four-dimensions, spanning multiple orders of magnitude in both temporal and spatial space. This study presents the authors viewpoint on the material characterization field, reviewing its recent past, evaluating its present capabilities, and proposing directions for its future development. Electron microscopy; atom probe tomography; x-ray, neutron and electron tomography; serial sectioning tomography; and diffraction-based analysis methods are reviewed, and opportunities for their future development are highlighted. Advances in surface probe microscopy have been reviewed recently and, therefore, are not included (D.A. Bonnell et al.: Rev. Modern Phys. in Review). In this study particular attention is paid to studies that have pioneered the synergetic use of multiple techniques to provide complementary views of a single structure or process; several of these studies represent the state-of-the-art in characterization and suggest a trajectory for the continued development of the field. Based on this review, a set of grand challenges for characterization science is identified, including suggestions for instrumentation advances, scientific problems in microstructure analysis, and complex structure evolution problems involving material damage. The future of microstructural characterization is proposed to be one not only where individual techniques are pushed to their limits, but where the community devises strategies of technique synergy to address complex multiscale problems in materials science and engineering.

[en] The article reviews the principle of electron microscopy which is used in scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). These instruments are important for the examination and analysis of the microstructural properties of solid objects. Relevance physical concept lies behind the devices are given. The main components of each device are also discussed

No abstract available

[en] Ketamine, an FDA-approved N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, is commonly used for general pediatric anesthesia. Accumulating evidence has indicated that prolonged exposure to ketamine induces widespread apoptotic cell death in the developing brains of experimental animals. Although mitochondria are known to play a pivotal role in cell death, little is known about the alterations in mitochondrial ultrastructure that occur during ketamine-induced neurotoxicity. The objective of this pilot study was to utilize classic and contemporary methods in electron microscopy to study the impact of ketamine on the structure of mitochondria in the developing rat brain. While transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was employed to comprehensively study mitochondrial inner membrane topology, serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBF-SEM) was used as a complementary technique to compare the overall mitochondrial morphology from a representative treated and untreated neuron. In this study, postnatal day 7 (PND-7) Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with ketamine or saline (6 subcutaneous injections × 20 mg/kg or 10 ml/kg, respectively, at 2-h intervals with a 6-h withdrawal period after the last injection, n=6 each group). Samples from the frontal cortex were harvested and analyzed using TEM or SBF-SEM. While classic TEM revealed that repeated ketamine exposure induces significant mitochondrial swelling in neurons, the newer technique of SBF-SEM confirmed the mitochondrial swelling in three dimensions (3D) and showed that ketamine exposure may also induce mitochondrial fission, which was not observable in the two dimensions (2D) of TEM. Furthermore, 3D statistical analysis of these reconstructed mitochondria appeared to show that ketamine-treated mitochondria had significantly larger volumes per unit surface area than mitochondria from the untreated neuron. The ultrastructural mitochondrial alterations demonstrated here by TEM and SBF-SEM support ketamine’s proposed mechanism of neurotoxicity in the developing rat brain.

[en] Tomography is an efficient tool to probe the 3 dimensional (3D) structure of materials. In the laboratory, a device has been developed to perform electron tomography in an environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM). The configuration of Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) in Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) provides a novel approach for the characterization of the 3D structure of materials and optimizes a compromise between the resolution level of a few nm and the large tomogram due to the high thickness of transparency. Moreover, STEM allows the observation in 2D of wet samples in an ESEM by finely controlling the sample temperature and the water pressure of the sample environment. It has been recently demonstrated that it was possible to acquire image series of hydrated objects and thus to attain 3D characterization of wet samples. In order to get reliable and quantitative data, the present study deals with the simulation of electron-matter interactions. From such simulation on the MCM-41 material, we determine the minimum quantity of water layer which can be detected on wet materials

[en] The deuterium (D) bubbles formed in W exposed to high flux D plasma were researched by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. After D plasma exposure at 500 K and 1000 K, a layer of nano-sized bubbles were homogenously distributed in W subsurface region. The D bubbles were homogenously nucleated due to the high D concentration, and the nucleation process is not related to the vacancy defects. At low temperature (500 K), D bubbles can grow by surface blistering, which caused different nano scale morphologies on different surfaces. At high temperature (1000 K), D bubbles mainly grow by vacancy clustering, which caused pinholes on the surface. (letter)

[en] Atomic-resolution imaging in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) constitutes a powerful tool for nanostructure characterization. Here, we demonstrate the quantitative interpretation of atomic-resolution high-angle annular dark-field (ADF) STEM images using an approach that does not rely on adjustable parameters. We measure independently the instrumental parameters that affect sub-0.1 nm-resolution ADF images, quantify their individual and collective contributions to the image intensity, and show that knowledge of these parameters enables a quantitative interpretation of the absolute intensity and contrast across all accessible spatial frequencies. The analysis also provides a method for the in-situ measurement of the STEM's effective source distribution.

[en] CaSO₄: Dy have been prepared with the varies of dopant concentration of 0.1 mol % to 0.5 mol % by wet precipitation technique. The resulting CaSO₄: Dy powder were characterized using Particle Size Analyzers (PSA) and founded the particle size of the powder are around 4-5 mm with the 91-95 % yield. The morphology of CaSO₄ and determination of dopant was characterized using SEM, TEM and EDX. (author)

[en] This paper reviews the application of (mainly) Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) in an engineering context. The first two sections are TEM and chemical in nature; the final three sections are more general and include aspects of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).

[en] The 10. meeting covered subjects on the application of electron microscopy in numerous fields such as biology and medicine, solid state physics, semiconductor research and production, crystallography, materials science, and chemistry of polymers. 174 summaries of poster contributions are included