Electron Microscopy Core - University of Houston
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Core Facilities

Electron Microscopy Core

About

Welcome to the electron microscopy core facility. The core was established in the Agrawal Engineering Research Building (AERB) in 2022 to serve the UH community and external users from the academia and industry.

This core facility is equipped with Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM), a plasma Focus Ion Beam (pFIB), conventional Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Aberration Corrected TEM (AC-TEM). The resolution of the instruments in this core facility is between 3nm and approximately 100pm. The facility is capable of conducting conventional microscopy, tomography, advanced software image reconstruction, in-situ testing, spectroscopy, among other techniques. Due to the resolution on the instruments, samples can be analyzed to the atomic resolution in both imaging and spectroscopy.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) Equipment

  • Axia product image

    Axia

    This instrument can be operated under conventional and environmental conditions. The maximum accelerating voltage is 30 kV in a filament (tungsten) Schottky source. The SEM is equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and Photholuminiscense (PL) detectors. The system has a resolution of up to 3 nm. The SEM is equipped with secondary and backscattering detectors for conventional imaging and topographic/compositional contrast.
  • Helios product image

    Plasma Focused Ion Beam (pFIB)

    Available Spring 2023
    The pFIB or dual beam is instrumented in a Helios SEM microscope with a resolution of 0.9 nm. The system can be operated under conventional or environmental conditions. The pFIB can be used to prepare TEM samples or autoslice using plasma (xenon) or gallium sources with manual or programable capabilities. Directional Backscattering Detector (DBD), EasyLift nanomanipulator, navigation camera (NavCam), Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS).

Summer 2024 Planned Equipment

  • Aberration Corrected Transmission Electron Microscope (AC-TEM)

    A 300 kV system with automated alignments for 300 and 60kV. The source is an Cold-FEG. At 300kV the microscope can reach 100pm resolution or better. The system is equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy with up to 0.3eV resolution. The system is Prob-Corrected. TEM can be operated under bright field, dark field, selected area electron diffraction, scanning transmission, high annular angle dark field (HAADF) conditions with conventional to atomic resolution. It is also equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The system is also capable for conducting tomography, focal series, low background, cryo and in-situ holders.

  • Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM)

    Conventional TEM conditions with a field emission source and an accelerating voltage of 200kV and nominal resolution of 0.15nm. The TEM can be operated under bright field, dark field, selected area electron diffraction, scanning transmission, conditions. It is also equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The system is also capable for conducting tomography and in-situ test.
Close-up of multiple computer workstations

Computer Workstations

  • 1TB Ram
  • Two Intel Xenon Gold 2.2 GHz, 24 cores
  • Windows 11 Pro
  • 12 TB Hard Drive
  • Two 55 inch 8K monitors
  • Digital Micrograph software
  • Velox software
  • Aviso software for image processing including 3D reconstruction

Contact

If you require access, training or further information about the equipment or the facility, please contact Dr. Francisco C. Robles Hernandez at fcrobles@uh.edu.