Learn and Develop

The latest in multimedia for Electron Microscopists from Microscopy and Analysis.

We hope you find our webinars, tutorials, book reviews, literature highlights and other online resources informative.

Highlights

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Bruker AXS Microanalysis Webinar: Revolutionising EDS analysis on TEM using Silicon Drift Detectors, 16 September 2009

06 February 2009
This webinar explained the technology of SDDs and particularly focused on Bruker‘s adaptation to (S)TEM operation. The ESPRIT software features for transmission electron microscopy included with Bruker‘s QUANTAX EDS systems were introduced and application examples from materials science were presented to demonstrate the performance of the XFlash® on (S)TEMs.
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BOOK REVIEW: Large angle convergent beam electron diffraction - application to crystal defects

19 January 2006
This is an excellent book! From an academic curiosity thirty years ago, the convergent-beam electron diffraction (CBED) method has recently become an indispensable tool in semiconductor materials defect analysis, and in nano-phase identification in materials science generally. The method, which is often provided as a "nanodiffraction" mode on modern electron microscopes, provides transmission electron diffraction patterns from sub-nanometer areas of thin crystalline films, using a highly convergent beam, so that Bragg spots appear as discs, and it is the contents of these disks, or "rocking curves" which are analyzed. As interest in the synthesis of finer-grained materials and individual nanostructures grows, techniques such as electron nanodiffraction have increased greatly in importance...
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BOOK REVIEW: High-Resolution Electron Microscopy, 3rd Edition

19 January 2006
This book is intended to teach students and research workers how to record and interpret atomic-resolution micrographs taken on high resolution electron microscopes (HREM). The content falls into three areas: the theory of electron and wave optics, applications in materials and life sciences, and a practical guide to the design and operation of an HREM. The high-resolution electron microscope is a phase-contrast instrument, and this concept is explained in the very first chapter. Here there is also a practical guide to using an HREM, a valuable theme that Spence replays throughout the book...
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NEW! Book Available for Review - The Nucleus, Vol 2, R. Hancock (ed)

10 September 2009
In The Nucleus, researchers from more than forty leading international laboratories describe state-of-the-art methods for isolating nuclei and their components and for studying their structure and activities, including some pathology-associated features. Volume 2: Chromatin, Transcription, Envelope, Proteins, Dynamics, and Imaging presents biophysical approaches to study the mechanical properties of nuclei, together with a comprehensive range of imaging methods. These include FISH, FRAP, FRET, molecular beacons, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, single molecule tracking, and combing DNA for optical microscopy, recognition imaging for atomic force microscopy, and hybridisation, tomography, and spectroscopic imaging for electron microscopy.
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The Basics of Crystallography and Diffraction, 3rd Edition by Christopher Hammond, University of Leeds, UK. ISBN 978-0-19-954644

29 August 2009
At almost 450 pages, this handsome book is ideal for any student or researcher who needs a basic understanding of crystallography and diffraction. The consistently high standard of presentation and explanation, the relatively low price (~£30 for the paperback edition), and the fact that this book is now in its third edition tells you everything you need to know. The third edition is longer, by a hundred pages, than the second and is split in to two halves that cover crystallography and diffraction.
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M&A Literature Highlights: March 2008

16 November 2008
Topics include: Scanning Probe Microscopy in Biology and Medicine, Aberration-Corrected Electron Microscopy, High-Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy, Helium Microscope, In-Situ Labelling of Biomolecules, Raman Microspectroscopy
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M&A Literature Highlights: November 2007

16 November 2008
Topics include: Nanomanipulation of Atoms by STM, Distortions in Light Microscope Images, Mass Measurement in Cryoelectron Microscopy, Characterization of Nanostructures, Fluorescence Nanoscopy in Living Cells, Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy, Variable-Pressure SEM
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TUTORIAL: Consumer versus Scientific Digital Cameras

15 November 2008
This article discusses a few key concepts of digital cameras, optics and associated software to illustrate scientific and economic differences between consumer and scientific digital cameras for scientists. Consumer digital cameras have gone from low resolution curiosities to very capable, high resolution, low-cost cameras. Depending on the intended use, consumer digital cameras could have a place in the scientific market.
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BOOK REVIEW: Grain Boundaries: Their Microstructure and Chemistry

19 January 2006
Materials science needs a microscopic, if not a nanoscopic knowledge in order to correctly understand and improve the properties of engineering materials. Most of the mechanical, physical and chemical properties of inorganic materials are directly influenced by their microstructure (i.e. size, shape, and orientation of grains and phases composing the bulk) and this fact is strongly affected by the atomic composition and distribution. For materials composed of grains it is obviously of primary importance to know the zone of bonding of these grains, i.e. the grain boundaries. This has been a must since the beginning of the last century. Thanks to the development of investigation techniques characterising this period a dramatic quantity of data concerning grain boundaries and their chemistry as well as their links to macroscopic properties has been collected and elaborated...