Main Features

• 100, 200 and 300 keV beam energy
• Field-emission gun
• In-column energy filter
• Gatan K2 Summit direct-electron detector
• Liquid-helium-capable specimen stage (details below)
• Special adaptation for phase-plate operation (details below)
• Condenser lenses designed for highly parallel illumination
• Analytical capability: EFTEM, EELS

Characteristics

• Focal length: 5.0 mm (16.5 mm in transfer mode)
• Spherical aberration: 5.2 mm
• Chromatic aberration: 3.9 mm

Resolution (normal mode)

• Lattice: 0.14 nm
• Point to Point: 0.29 nm

Cameras

• Gatan K2 Summit direct-electron detector
• 4k CMOS camera (TVIPS F-416)
• 1k TV-rate CCD camera (TVIPS F-114)

Specimen stage: The highly stable specimen stage is capable of liquid-helium operation at 18K. When used with liquid nitrogen, it can maintain the specimen in the vitreous state for 48 hours. Three specimen cartridges can be loaded at once. The specimen can be tilted to +/- 70° in two orthogonal directions. The stage has piezo-driven translation, including a long-range piezo drive along the tilt axis, to be used for off-axis imaging in low-dose applications.

Phase-plate imaging: Two airlock-type phase-plate holders are provided, with heating and piezo fine-positioning. The upper phase-plate holder is in the objective-lens back-focal plane, at a focal length of 5 mm. The lower phase-plate holder is in a transferred diffraction plane at a focal length of 16.5 mm, which is enabled by a special objective minilens. Automated data collection, including phase-plate centering, is provided.

Energy filter: The in-column energy filter allows free choice of detector, including photographic film. In addition to zero-loss imaging, which is ideal for cryo-TEM, EFTEM and EEL spectroscopy are also available.

Software: SerialEM and Leginon are installed, both of which will be extended for phase-plate imaging. TVIPS EM Menu 4 can be used for tuning coma-free alignment. TVIPS EELS software is also provided.

Main Features

• 100 and 200 keV beam energy
• Field-emission gun
• 4k and 1k CCD cameras

Characteristics

• Focal length: 2.7 mm
• Spherical aberration: 2.0 mm
• Chromatic aberration: 2.0 mm

Resolution (normal mode)

• Lattice: 0.14 nm
• Point to Point: 0.27 nm

Cameras

• TVIPS F-415 (4k CCD)
• TVIPS F-114 (1K TV-rate CCD)

Cryo-transfer specimen holders

• Gatan CT3500 with extended Dewar (2)
• Gatan 626 (2)

Room-temperature specimen holders

• Standard
• Gatan 670 high-tilt tomography (+/- 71°) with Faraday cage

Software: SerialEM, Leginon, and TVIPS EM Menu 4

Main features

• SEM field-emission gun
• FIB Ga+ liquid-metal-ion source
• Gas-injection system with 5 gasses
• Multiple detectors (see below)
• Specimen airlock
• Cryo specimen stage and transfer system (see below)
• EDX system

SEM characteristics

• Beam energy: 0.1 to 30 keV
• Probe current: 4 pA to 20 nA
• Resolution at 30 keV: 1.1 nm
• Resolution at 1 keV: 2.5 nm

FIB characteristics

• Beam energy: 2 to 30 keV
• Probe current: 0.1 pA to 45 nA
• Resolution at 30 keV: 5 nm

Detectors

• Secondary-electron / secondary-ion detector
• Secondary-electron in-lens detector
• Backscattered-electron energy-filtered in-lens detector
• STEM detector
• Four-quadrant backscattered-electron detector
• Thin-window Si(Li) EDX detector (Bruker Spirit EDX system)

Cryo-stage and cryo-transfer system: A Leica VCT-100 cryosystem is configured for maintaining specimens in the vitreous state in the FIB-SEM, and carrying out cryo-transfer with frost protection.  It is used primarily for thinning vitreous specimens for subsequent cryo-TEM.  It works in conjunction with in-house designed accessories for cryo specimen handling.  The system consists of a cryo-stage in the FIB-SEM, a specimen loading box, and a cryo electron-beam evaporator and pumping station (an accessorized Leica MED 020).  The specimen is held in a special-purpose covered transfer block, and is uncovered only during loading and in the FIB-SEM.  The transfer block is moved between the loading box, the pumping station, and the FIB-SEM within an evacuated and actively cooled cryotransfer shuttle.

Software: Standard software on the FIB-SEM can be used for “FIB tomography“: sequential FIB-milling and SEM imaging, which results in 3D reconstructions of volumes as large as 4000 µm² at an isotropic 3D resolution approaching 5 nm.  Automated FIB-milling protocols can be set up for preparing TEM samples.

Main features

• 120 keV beam energy
• LaB6 electron source
• 5-sample specimen holder
• High-contrast objective lens
• 4k CMOS camera
• Automated data collection

Characteristics

• Focal length: 3.9 mm
• Spherical aberration: 3.0 mm
• Chromatic aberration: 3.4 mm

Resolution

• Lattice: 0.14 nm
• Point-to-point: 0.36 nm

Cryotransfer specimen holder: Gatan 626

Room-temperature specimen holders

• Standard
• High-tilt tomography
• 5-sample

Camera: TVIPS F-416 (4k CMOS)

Software: SerialEM and TVIPS EM Menu 4

Vitrobot cryo-plunger

Gatan Cryoplunge freezer

Bal-Tec HPM 010 high-pressure freezer

Leica EM UC-6 / FC-6 cryo-ultramicrotome

• Leica EM AFS2 freeze-substitution system
• FEI Vitrobot plunge-freezer
• Home-built plunge freezers (2)
• Leica UCT / FSC cryo-ultramicrotome
• Emitech K775 freeze-dryer

Fischione 1020 Plasma Cleaner with external tuning and custom specimen holders

South Bay IBS/e dual Argon-ion-beam sputtering/etching system

• Tousimis Samdri-795 critical-point dryer
• Cressington 108auto sputter coater

Scanners

• Zeiss PhotoScan Z/I
• Nikon SuperCoolscan 9000

General

• Four dual-processor Linux workstations.
• Four-processor dual-core Nvidia Tesla Linux workstation with high-end graphics.
• Four-processor Linux compute workstation with 16 GB RAM and 3TB RAID.
• Large-screen LCD and projector displays for collaborative work.
• Several Windows and OS X laptops.

Cluster: 

Linux Beowulf cluster with 13 nodes of dual hex-core processors and 3TB of RAID storage.  Available either as a stand-alone cluster or integrated into a larger Linux cluster containing an additional 32 nodes of dual quad-core AMD processors and 18 TB RAID storage.