Invited Paper IS+NC-ThA1
In-situ Electromagnetic Field Experiments in the Analytical Electron Microscope

Thursday, October 23, 2008, 2:00 pm, Room 310

The term in-situ microscopy has been traditionally used to describe studies of liquid/solid or gas/solid interactions. While this is an important aspect of materials characterization it represents only one regime of the study of materials under real-world environments. Recent work at the ANL EMCenter has focused upon dynamic studies of materials in the analytical electron microscope (AEM) using electromagnetic excitation and the observation and characterization using both imaging and spectroscopy. In magnetic and anti-ferromagnetic materials we drive transitions between states by means of externally applied fields and/or temperature and observe both qualitatively and quantitatively the changes which occur as a function of the driving transition. In the area of nanoscale materials we are investigating the use of in-situ optical excitation of novel structures and then performing simultaneous electron spectroscopy to elucidate the changes in their plasmonic features. Some aspects of this work have reached the routine level, while others particularly those requiring time synchronized excitation and observation are more demanding requiring significant modifications of conventional instrumentation.