Microscope images can now be captured much faster, moving away from the traditional one pixel at a time approach. This innovation comes from a new imaging technique for neutral atomic beam microscopes, developed by researchers at Swansea University. Ultimately, this advancement may enable engineers and scientists to generate results more quickly when analyzing samples.
Microscope images can now be captured much faster, moving away from the traditional one pixel at a time approach. This innovation comes from a new imaging technique for neutral atomic beam microscopes developed by researchers at Swansea University. Ultimately, this advancement may enable engineers and scientists to generate results more quickly when analyzing samples.
Neutral atomic beam microscopes are currently a significant area of research. They can image various surfaces that standard microscopes cannot examine. This includes delicate samples, like bacterial biofilms, ice films, or organic photovoltaic devices, which are challenging to image due to damage from electrons, ions, and photons.
These microscopes work by directing a beam of low energy neutral particles, primarily helium atoms, toward a surface to capture its structure and composition.
Typically, existing neutral atomic beam microscopes create an image by illuminating the sample through a tiny pinhole and then scanning the sample’s position while recording the scattered beam to develop the image.
A major downside of this method is the lengthy imaging time required as images are captured one pixel at a time. Reducing the pinhole size to enhance resolution dramatically decreases the beam flux and extends measurement duration significantly.
This is where the research from Swansea University provides a solution. A team led by Professor Gil Alexandrowicz from the chemistry department has introduced a faster alternative to pinhole scanning.
They demonstrated this new technique using a beam of helium-3 atoms, a rare light isotope of helium.
The new method utilizes a non-uniform magnetic field through which the atom beam passes, employing nuclear spin precession to encode the positions of the beam particles interacting with the sample.
Morgan Lowe, a PhD student in the Swansea group, constructed the magnetic encoding device and conducted initial experiments that confirmed the method’s effectiveness.
The beam profile measured by Mr. Lowe aligns closely with numerical simulations. Furthermore, the team has demonstrated through simulations that the magnetic encoding method could enhance image resolution with only a minor increase in time when compared to the conventional pinhole microscopy method.
Professor Gil Alexandrowicz, the lead researcher from the chemistry department at Swansea University, stated:
“The method we have developed opens up various new opportunities in the field of neutral beam microscopy. It should make it possible to improve image resolution without requiring prohibitively long measurement times, and also has the potential to enable new contrast mechanisms based on the magnetic properties of the samples under investigation.”
In the near term, the team plans to refine the new method to develop a fully operational prototype for a magnetic encoding neutral beam microscope. This will facilitate testing for resolution limits, contrast mechanisms, and various operational modes of the new technique.
Looking ahead, this innovative type of microscope is expected to become accessible to scientists and engineers for characterizing the topography and composition of sensitive, delicate samples that they produce or study.
