Scanning Electron Microscopy Blog

Building Materials : Microscopic Images

2011-12-05T02:57:30Z

Very well done page showing mostly SEM images of buliding materials.

I love it when images are presented that show how beautiful everyday materials can be when imaged at the microscopic scale. The folks at Healthy Heating have done just that. Microscopy of building materials has created an entire industry, based initially, on identifying and quantifying asbestos. This has evolved into any possible indoor air contaminant including mold and chemical irritants.

Artistic use of SEM images

2011-04-26T18:30:05Z

Those crafty folks in CA love their public artwork. An artist in La Jolla has created a public mural using a micrograph of beach sand taken with a scanning electron microscope. See an article about the work here.

DIY scanning electron microscope

2011-03-25T04:52:37Z

OK, here's a project for all the do-it-yourselfers out there. Build your own SEM! This guy did it and does a really good job of explaining how an SEM actually works.

I guess first hand knowledge on how one is put together really helps to understand the fundamentals of how all the pieces work together to make a microscope.

Makes me wish I had more time and a better supplied garage.

Hitachii FE-SEM updates

2011-02-14T16:56:37Z

Hitachii High-Technologies announced today that it is updating it's family of high resolution FE-SEM instruments, the SU8000 family. Their FE-SEMs are best in class in terms of resolution and they offer several detector configurations and stage/sample chamber options. The release also gives interesting tidbits on how many of these microscopes are already installed and their projected sales figures for the updated line.

Here's what they had to say in their press release.

Very Small (and temporary) Holiday Greeting

2010-12-07T14:23:01Z

Some folks at the University of Leeds, with a ton of holiday cheer, (and perhaps not enough work to do) have created a video showing how they put a Merry Christmas greeting onto a snowflake. The fine folks at Wired Magazine have the details.

Arsenic Bacteria SEM Image

2010-12-02T20:45:01Z

The big science news of the day is the announcement by NASA that their scientists have found a species of bacteria that thrives in an arsenic rich environment and is unlike any other life forms on our planet. While the ramifications of this announcement are significant, a minor part of the announcement on CNN.com was the use of a scanning electron microscope image on the front page! The link is to the article, but the SEM image was the eye candy used on the CNN main page this afternoon.

ASPEX "Name That Sample" Contest - Week 6!

2010-07-16T12:50:21Z

It's time again for the latest installment of the ASPEX "Name That Sample" contest! They have an image of some random thing collected with one of their PSEM instruments

The week 5 image was tough, fly ash isn't something the average Joe (or Jane) would think of, or even know about, but it is an interesting material. This week's image looks just as tough, could be almost anything, but at least they put a scale marker on this image!

Good Luck!

R&D 100 award for JEOL

2010-07-12T12:35:02Z

Last week R&D Magazine announced the winners of the 48th Annual R&D 100 Awards, which salute the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year. This year, the Clairscope from JEOL was in the list. The Clairscope was introduced at last years M&M conference (which is coming up next month by the way) and the first two have been delivered, one to Northwestern University

From R&D Magazine:

JEOL USA, Inc. in conjunction with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has developed a new microscopy tool--the ClairScope--for cell biology and microbiology applications. Coupling optical microscopy with an atmospheric scanning electron microscope (ASEM) in an open culture system, the system provides a life science researcher both the opportunity for fluorophore imaging and the high spatial resolution that can only be achieved through electron microscopy. A key innovation of the ClairScope is that these two imaging methods can be employed on a sample in its native state (in solution) of atmospheric pressure and temperature.

Flickr: FEI Company's Photostream

2010-07-06T21:40:48Z

FEI, manufacturer of scanning electron microscopes, has an awesome photostream on Flickr. Browse this enormous stockpile of images for beautiful and interesting images of a wide range of samples. Only drawback: not everyone can submit images, you have to be an FEI user.

FEI also has a very active Facebook page

2010 Image Contest : FEI Company

2010-05-21T02:08:39Z

http://www.fei.com/owners/2010-image-contest/default.aspx

I'm sure the owners of FEI instruments will be doing their best to create amazing images and show how their images are superior to the Zeiss users.

Carl Zeiss Nano Image Contest 2010

2010-05-20T14:16:51Z

If anyone has time for some summer fun, and if you have a Zeiss electron or ion microscope handy, you could enter your work in their Nano Image Contest! I'm looking forward to seeing what amazing images come out of the contest.

Application of SEM to identify the depositional environment of sediments

2010-05-17T14:03:34Z

Sedimentologists use many properties of individual sediment particles to help determine the environment that the sediments were deposited from. By examining the micro-scale surface morphology of particles of quartz it is possible to infer if that grain was deposited in an aeolian (wind), glacial (ice), or fluvial (river) environment as a couple of examples. Quartz is most commo9nly used because it is both abundant (most abundant mineral in the earth's crust) and resistant to weathering (so it retains microfeatures and is preserved in sedimentary rocks). This is extermely useful information to a sedimentologist.

But what do you do when you are trying to study environments with very few quartz grains? Well, a group from Massey University have done preliminary work to show that magnetite may be an adequate substitute for quartz. They observed features on magentite particles from glacial moraine deposits that are very similar to features on quartz particles from the same environments. While there are some inconsistencies between quartz and magnetite, it is a good preliminary study showing the potential to use another mineral to do this kind of analysis.

SEM/EDS-Analysis in Art History

2010-05-10T17:37:40Z

A quick read on a case study on the use of SEM and EDS analysis of historical paintings was recently put up by Imaging & Microscopy. The analysis of paint pigments by light microscopy is a powerful application in the field of art history and conservation. Bay adding SEM and EDS analysis it is possible to add even more information about the use of various pigments and help understand the painting styles of significant artists. Also, from a historical perspective it is useful to track the trade in certain materials across cultures and geographies. But, perhaps most importantly, it is possible to detect fraudulent or counterfeit art before it goes to auction and ends up on display as an original work.

Moth wings by SEM

2010-05-07T13:42:00Z

Interesting paper just put out in Microscopy Research and Technique. I'm no entomologist, but I do know that certain species of insects look different when imaged using non-visible wavelengths of light (UV or IR). This paper shows how the silk moth species Antheraea assamensis actually does it. The moths were imaged using UV photography, then the wing scales were imaged using SEM. Based on the SEM observation of the scale morphology the authors explained the optical properties and showed how the mating behavior changed under different lighting conditions.

ASPEX "Name That Sample" Contest

2010-05-03T20:29:40Z

Looks like the folks at ASPEX have got a good thing going with their "Name That Sample" contest and have started up Week 4!

The last image was a Halls Cough drop and wrapper and produced hundreds of guesses so the interest looks strong, hopefully it is translating into sales.