Wageningen University Orders FEI Magellan Scanning Electron Microscope for High-Resolution Surface Imaging of Biological Materials

FEI Company, a leading provider of atomic-scale imaging and analysis systems, today announced the sale of a Magellan™ extreme high-resolution scanning electron microscope (XHR SEM) to Wageningen University, The Netherlands. The Magellan is the only family of SEMs that provides high-throughput, sub-nanometer resolution at low accelerating voltages, while retaining the flexibility and ease-of-use that are characteristic of SEM technology.

According to Adriaan van Aelst, manager, Wageningen Electron Microscopy Centre, Wageningen University, “The Magellan XHR SEM will serve as an essential imaging and analysis tool in our microscopy lab. It will enable us to extend our SEM analysis to sub-nanometer, high-resolution SEM imaging at low voltages, and at ambient and low temperatures. The Magellan’s combination of low-voltage imaging with high-resolution power is essential to analyzing very small and fragile surface structures.”

High-resolution SEM has traditionally required the use of higher accelerating voltages in order to diminish the beam broadening effects of chromatic aberration. However, higher beam energies can damage the sample and degrade both the resolution and surface specificity of the signal as the beam penetrates more deeply beneath the surface, particularly in light-element biological materials. The Magellan provides sub-nanometer resolution over the full range of beam energies, from less than one kiloVolt (kV) to 30kV, allowing high-resolution, ultra-structural imaging of sensitive biological samples. Equally important, it does so without imposing additional constraints on the sample or increasing operational complexity.

“With the Magellan, FEI has designed a SEM that is in a class by itself,” said Matthew Harris, FEI’s vice president and general manager for the Life Sciences Division. “It complements the other leading technologies that FEI offers for ultra-structural imaging, including the Titan Krios™ in the high-end TEM segment, and the Helios NanoLab™ in the DualBeam™ segment. Now, with Magellan, we have made high-throughput SEM imaging of biological samples a practical reality for life sciences research.”

Harris adds, “We are pleased that the Magellan XHR SEM has been recognized by an independent judging panel and editors of R&D Magazine with the ‘2009 R&D 100 Award’. This award recognizes the 100 most technologically-significant products introduced for research in the past year.”

The Magellan XHR SEM will be located in the Wageningen Electron Microscopy Centre in the new RADIX Building at the University. The system was shipped to Wageningen University during the first week of July 2009.