FEI Unveils Titan³ 80-300 S/TEM

FEI Company, widely acknowledged as the leading innovator for ultra-high resolution transmission electron microscopes (TEMs), has added a revolutionary new instrument, the Titan³ 80-300 to its Titan product family. The Titan³ takes the capabilities of FEI’s powerful Titan S/TEM microscope to new levels of performance and enhanced operation, giving users both the sub-Ångström imaging capabilities of the world’s most powerful commercially-available microscope and a lower total cost of ownership for a high-end microscope.

Aptly named the Titan “cubed” because of its unique, fully enclosed profile, the system is designed to deliver the highest stability and performance in a commercial scanning/transmission electron microscope (S/TEM). The superb ultra-high resolution S/TEM performance of this new system is achieved by its all-new design that allows—for the first time ever—the combination of two Cs-abberation correctors and a monochromator on a single instrument. The system’s innovative enclosure significantly reduces environmental interference providing greater stability and eliminating the need for many expensive lab improvements.

“The use of our Titan³ often involves numbers of students and post-doctoral fellows excitedly grouped around the console. Their talking, often loudly, and movements in the vicinity of the enclosed microscope appear to have no effect on the quality of the data produced,” explains Dr. Hamish Fraser, Director of the Center for the Accelerated Maturation of Materials at Ohio State University and a beta user of the Titan³. “Our microscope is situated in a room that is of reasonable quality in an old building, but the addition of the 'box' provides excellent insulation and raises the quality of the system’s operating environment to being superb.”

This new Titan family system is targeted for a growing range of industrial, institutional and academic researchers who need to characterise the atomic-scale structure, chemistry and dynamics of individual nanostructures. With the aberration-free, sub-Ångström vision of the Titan³, scientists can study how atoms combine to form materials, how materials grow and how they respond to a variety of external factors. The monochromator complements these capabilities by providing additional information about bonding states of atoms and about electronic properties on the nanoscale. These are the most basic parameters that science needs to understand to improve materials properties and to obtain a deeper understanding of the macroscopic behavior of nanotechnology devices. Such data can aid in the improvement of designs for everything from better, lighter, more efficient light sources, automobiles and airliners, to stronger buildings and new ways of harvesting energy.

The Titan³ features a new, fully-digital remote control interface that improves ease of use and changes how users interface with the instrument. No longer will system operators have to work in dark remote labs. An all-new digital user interface affords users the freedom to operate the Titan³ remotely and in ambient conditions. A high-speed digital camera and smart user interface make operation easier and improves the handling of a wide range of applications.

The Titan³ 80-300 can be operated in the range of 80 to 300 kV for optimised imaging of a wide variety of materials from ultra-light carbon compounds to ultra-dense heavy metal samples. The modular design of the Titan column also offers greater planning flexibility when purchasing the Titan³. Base systems can be retrofitted in the field with probe Cs- and image Cs-correctors.

“It used to be that microscopy labs were built around the microscope to accommodate the stringent acoustic and temperature limitations of advanced S/TEM systems, adding significant costs to acquiring advanced instrumentation,” explains Dominique Hubert, vice president and general manager for FEI’s NanoResearch division. “The Titan³, with its combined benefit of market-leading performance and its enhanced total cost of ownership, sets a new industry standard and will change how buyers approach the prospect of purchasing ultra-high resolution S/TEM systems.”