Skip to content | Change text size
 

Research

About MCEM Research

MCEM supports a wide variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research projects, covering topics from corrosion to catalysis, optics to superconductivity, alloys to ceramics, polymers to biomaterials and microelectronics to nanotechnology.

MCEM academic and research staff also conduct independent research programmes in:

  • the theoretical and experimental development of instrumentation, methods and techniques in electron microscopy, and 
  • the application of electron microscopy and atom probe microscopy to the solution of problems in science and engineering.

Areas of specialist expertise include:

In TEM

  • Atomic Resolution and Aberration Corrected Electron Microscopy;
    - Bright Field and Annular Dark Field STEM, and
    - Phase Contrast High Resolution Electron Microscopy,
  • Electron Tomography,
  • Quantitative analytical spectroscopy;
    - Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy,
    - EDX, and
    - ALCHEMI.
  • Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction and Large Angle Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction,
  • Electron scattering theory, elastic and inelastic,
  • Computation of electron scattering, images and diffraction patterns, and
  • Ultramicrotomy of hard and composite materials for ultrathin TEM specimens.

In SEM

  • Quantitative analytical spectroscopy,
  • Electron Back Scatter Diffraction,
  • Monte Carlo modelling of electron interactions and x-ray production,
  • X-ray Ultramicroscopy and tomography, and
  • Ultramicrotomy of hard and composite materials for bulk SEM specimens.

In Atom Probe Microscopy

  • 3D-Atom Probe Field Ion Microscopy

Research Highlights

 Method to measure spatial coherence of subangstrom electron beams (C. Dwyer, R. Erni, J. Etheridge) - App. Phys. Lett. 93, 021115 (2008)

A practical guide to the measurement of structure phases and magnitudes by three-beam convergent beam electron diffraction (P. Nakashima, A.F. Moodie, J. Etheridge) - Ultramic. 108, 901 (2008)

Thickness Difference: A New Filtering Tool for Quantitative Electron Diffraction  (P. Nakashima) -  Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 (2007)

Electron nanodiffraction using sharply focused parallel probes (C.Dwyer et al.)  - Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 151104 (2007)

3D Atom Probe study of SmCo-based High Temperature Permanent Magnets (X. Xiong) - Acta Materialia 52, 737–748 (2004)