"As a representative of JEOL I'd like to go on record as saying that the DOE 2000
project, of which we are an integral though peripheral participant, has stimulated and
motivated our company to think more seriously about the future of remote microscopy and
has precipitated an active and agressive program to complete a better computer interface
and a consequent remote capability for our front line TEM and SEM instruments. We would
not have pursued this important development without the stimulation of the DOE 2000
Program. I can assure you that the world of microscopy will be a different one because of
your collective efforts."
Mike Kersker
JEOL USA, Inc.
Introduction
The Materials Microcharacterization Collaboratory (MMC) is a partnership between ANL,
LBNL, NIST, ORNL, and the University of Illinois to link all of their laboratories through
videoconferencing, shared data-viewing, and collaborative analysis. The ultimate goal of
the program is to create a virtual laboratory where all sites can interact with one
another and share information and expertise.
The Industrial Partners in the MMC have been considered an important part of the
collaboratory. Through their cooperation, technical and financial assistance the MMC has
been able to accelerate the objectives of this project. This document evaluates
established benefits of this collaboration to manufacturers in electron microscopy, with
specific attention to benefits to EMiSPEC Systems, Inc.
Knowledge transfer
In electron microscopy, there have traditionally been tight relations between
university research laboratories, national laboratories and corporate research facilities
on one side, and companies involved in producing scientific instrumentation on the other.
Many of the innovations and product ideas that support this industry today have originated
in research laboratories.
Presently, a significant portion of equipment in electron microscopy experiences
innovation and redesign inspired by emerging computer technologies. The MMC has had a
profound impact in stimulating developments related to the further integration of electron
microscopy instrumentation and modern computer technology. Important aspects of this new
computer technology are distributed processing and WEB technology. These technologies
enable separation of the instrumentation from the user, thus making possible remote
execution and monitoring of scientific experiments using Intranets and/or the Internet.
Most importantly, the activities of the MMC have helped convince the industry of the
commercial viability of timely implementation of aforementioned technologies. As a result,
various commercial products (including EMiSPEC products) are now being developed that
allow experiments on expensive electron microscopes to be conducted remotely. Along with
these developments, significant innovations are taking place on the basic design of
electron microscopes to create a high level of compatibility between their internal
computer systems and the outside world.
Outlook
From the perspective of commercial product development, it is important to continue the
initiative started by the MMC. In part because the collaboratory directly stimulates
relevant technology, and in part because the collaboratory stimulates dialogue between
manufacturers and the scientific community.
In the recent past, EMiSPEC has introduced data acquisition equipment that integrates
the electron microscope and all its detectors. This has represented an important
innovation since it reduced the number of computer systems attached to the electron
microscope to one. As a result, experiments combining multiple detectors and microscope
control, that were previously considered difficult or impossible, can now be conducted
with ease.
The next step is to make this new functionality available remotely. The involvement
with MMC has helped convince EMiSPEC to start developments in this direction in a timely
fashion. Many of the requirements on new instrumentation that have been put forward by the
MMC, will be included in the next versions of EMiSPEC products.
Apart from stimulating and implementing technological innovation, the MMC should
continue to play an important role in ensuring remote access of electron microscope
instrumentation that is secure and available to everyone who would benefit from it. Given
the limited resources and corporate interests of most manufacturers in electron
microscopy, these, and various other aspects of remote instrument control, are not likely
to get the attention it deserves.
Dr. Hans de Ruijter
EMiSPEC Systems, Inc.
2409 S. Rural Rd., Suite D
Tempe, AZ 85282
In my responsibility for Strategic Product Management for TEM in FEI Company I was
really stimulated by the DOE2000 project to accelerated the development of our new TEM
product range, called Tecnai. Tecnai is the first TEM/STEM analytical system that operates
under Microsoft Windows NT operating system. In the system all column attachments and
detectors are seamlessly embedded in order to increase ease of use, correlation between
data from the instrument and to tailor the total analytical TEM/STEM system for dedicated
customer needs in the challenging fields of Materials Research, Structural Biology and
Life Sciences as well as in industrial applications like Semiconductor development and
quality assurance.
FEI and previously Philips Electron Optics B.V. have alway been on the forefront of
applying computer technology both in TEM and in STEM basically to make the instruments
accessible to a larger audience through improvements in ease of use.
The DOE2000 project has triggered the idea that the TEM should be an information node
in local networks as well as even the Internet. It makes investments in very special
analytical equipment pay of because of the potential larger user group that can assess the
instrument. We also see the opportunities of using remote microscopy in teaching and
training of newcomers to the field, which will be absolutely necessary as the need for
good TEM work will increase rapidly in the future due the fact that understanding
materials and processes on a Nanometer scale will become imperative for a lot of
developments in high value added products.
So making TEM's information centres on network will again make the instrument
accessible to a larger audience. In order to realize these goals, developments need to be
done on cameras to capture images both in TV rate mode and in slow scan mode. Cameras will
have to be developed that can capture diffraction patterns with sufficient resolution and
dynamic range.
Digital TV needs to become available over networks in order for remote users to really
be in touch with the instruments. Networking technology and software will standardly
become available as multi media developments are helping us here. Our new TEM product
line, called Tecnai, is complete prepared to make use of these technologies.
Studies have to be conducted what user interfaces are needed to run remote microscopy
sessions as most of the traditional user interfaces for TEM's have been designed to work
at the instrument. In Tecnai we have built in the possibility for user to build their own
user interface, to optimise it according to their wishes.
In FEI we will continue to support the DOE2000 initiative as we believe that we will
tremendously benefit from the fact that more users can take advantage of the installed
high end TEM base. We will continue to focus our development efforts to get our
instruments ready for that job.
Best Personal Regards,
Ben Bormans
TEM Product Line Manager
FEI Electron Optics,
Achtseweg Noord 5,
P.O. Box 218,
5600 MD Eindhoven
The Netherlands