TEAM Microscope Demonstrates Record 0.5Å Spatial Resolution

The Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope project (TEAM) has met a major goal, and ahead of schedule.  Tests performed on the TEAM 0.5 microscope have demonstrated 0.5Å resolution. This marks a new record in electron microscopy and paves the way for new kinds of experiments and exploration of the atomic structure in nanomaterials.

TEAM project manager Peter Denes of Berkeley Lab’s Engineering Division sees this early success as a "validation of DOE's investment in the development of world-class scientific instrumentation, and a good omen for other major projects in electron microscopy."

After completion of the full battery of acceptance tests later this year, the instrument will be installed at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM), where it will take its place in a specially-designed lab inside one of NCEM's landmark silos. TEAM 0.5 will become a user facility at NCEM in the fall of 2008 – to be replaced with TEAM I in 2009.

TEAM 0.5 corrects for spherical aberration, while TEAM I will be the world's first electron microscope that is corrected for both spherical and chromatic aberration.
Says NCEM director Ulrich Dahmen, "The extraordinary ‘vision’ of the TEAM microscope will bring us one step closer to meeting one of the great scientific challenges in electron microscopy -- to obtain 3-dimensional atomic resolution images that allow us to see every atom in an individual nanoparticle."

The microscope is a special design that builds on the advanced commercial column produced by FEI company, with added techniques and instrumentation developed by TEAM. NCEM's Christian Kisielowski, who worked with FEI engineers in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, to obtain the landmark results is very excited about this machine: "This is the most incredible microscope I have ever seen – a major advance beyond the ARM (Atomic Resolution Microscope) and even the One-Angstrom Microscope," he said.

TEAM is one of the Department of Energy’s 20-year facilities roadmap projects, led by Berkeley Lab with collaborators at Argonne, Oak Ridge, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.