Colliex C, Brun N, Gloter A, Imhoff D, Kociak M, March K, Mory C, Stéphan O, Tencé M, Walls M
Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (UMR CNRS 8502), Building 510, Université Paris Sud 11, 91405 Orsay, France.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2009 Sep 28;367(1903):3845-58. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2009.0128.
Developments in instrumentation are essential to open new fields of science. This clearly applies to electron microscopy, where recent progress in all hardware components and in digitally assisted data acquisition and processing has radically extended the domains of application. The demonstrated breakthroughs in electron optics, such as the successful design and practical realization and the use of correctors, filters and monochromators, and the permanent progress in detector efficiency have pushed forward the performance limits, in terms of spatial resolution in imaging, as well as for energy resolution in electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and for sensitivity to the identification of single atoms. As a consequence, the objects of the nanoworld, of natural or artificial origin, can now be explored at the ultimate atomic level. The improved energy resolution in EELS, which now encompasses the near-IR/visible/UV spectral domain, also broadens the range of available information, thus providing a powerful tool for the development of nanometre-level photonics. Furthermore, spherical aberration correctors offer an enlarged gap in the objective lens to accommodate nanolaboratory-type devices, while maintaining angström-level resolution for general characterization of the nano-object under study.
仪器设备的发展对于开拓新的科学领域至关重要。这一点在电子显微镜领域体现得尤为明显，近期所有硬件组件以及数字辅助数据采集与处理方面的进展，已从根本上扩展了其应用领域。电子光学领域已取得显著突破，例如成功设计并实际实现了校正器、滤波器和单色仪的应用，探测器效率也在不断提高，这推动了成像空间分辨率、电子能量损失谱（EELS）中的能量分辨率以及单原子识别灵敏度等性能极限的提升。因此，现在可以在终极原子层面探索自然或人工来源的纳米世界的物体。EELS中能量分辨率的提高，目前已涵盖近红外/可见光/紫外光谱域，这也拓宽了可用信息的范围，从而为纳米级光子学的发展提供了强大工具。此外，球差校正器在物镜中提供了更大的间隙，以容纳纳米实验室类型的设备，同时保持埃级分辨率用于对所研究的纳米物体进行一般表征。
