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FEI Titan Themis
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Inqui r y I s sue
2
| 2016
Inqui r y I s sue
2
| 2016
9
Through a combination of DOE, Ames Laboratory, and
Iowa State University funding, three state-of-the-art electron
beam characterization tools worth more than $6 million were
purchased and an existing transmission electron microscope
was moved and upgraded. The facility houses the following:
FEI Teneo
field emission scanning electron microscope
with Oxford EDS/EBSD for combined elemental and phase
mapping and texture determination.
FEI Helios
Focus Ion Beam (dual beam) system with easy
lift out capabilities for TEM and 3D atom probe sample
preparation, auto-slice capability for 3D reconstruction and a
multi-chemical deposition system for circuit editing.
FEI Tecnai
G2-F20 scanning transmission electron
microscope (STEM) with both EDX and EELS capability.
FEI Titan Themis
300 Cubed probe aberration corrected
STEMwith Super-X EDX detector, GIF quantum ER system
and a Lorentz lens with biprism, which enables rapid, precise
navigation from mesoscopic to atomic scale, as well as study
of intrinsic magnetic and electric fields.
Obviously only trained researchers may operate the
equipment and so far, 65 individuals have applied for training
and 42 have been approved to operate one or more of the
machines. All users are Ames Laboratory associates, but they
include researchers from a number of departments across the
ISU campus.
When the building was built, one large instrument bay
at the south end of the building was left empty to allow for
future expansion. Work is underway to finish that space to
accommodate three pieces of equipment that can also benefit
from the building’s isolation features and the proximity to the
other equipment.
That equipment includes a nitrogen vacancy (NV)
centers in diamond magnetoscope used by Ames Laboratory
researcher Ruslan Prozorov and his group; a stimulated
emission depletion imaging (STED) system developed by
Ames Laboratory scientist Emily Smith; and an Extreme
Quantum Terahertz nanoscope proposed by Ames Laboratory
scientist Jigang Wang.
According to Sarah Wiley, SIF program coordinator,
construction should be completed by mid-2017, and the
three research groups are expected to be operational by the
start of the fall 2017 semester.
SENSITIVE INSTRUMENT FACILITY
SENSITIVE INSTRUMENT FACILITY
FEI Teneo
FEI Helios
FEI Tecnai
Kewei Sun uses a microscope in the SIF’s wet lab to pre-
pare a sample for observation by one of the facility’s electron
microscopes.
Facility users view material samples through the TECnai scan-
ning transmission electron microscope. The Tecnai was moved
from Wilhelm Hall and upgraded for use at the SIF.