FEI Titan 80-300 TEM (Titan-T)

The FEI Titan 80-300 TEM (Titan-T) is a high-resolution transmission electron microscope equipped with a field emission gun and a corrector for the spherical aberration (C_S) of the imaging lens system. The instrument is designed for the investigation of a wide range of solid state phenomena taking place on the atomic scale, which requires true atomic resolution capabilities. Under optimum optical settings of the image C_S-corrector (CEOS CETCOR) the point-resolution is extended up to the information limit of well below 100 pm with 200 keV and 300 keV electrons. A special piezo-stage design allows ultra-precise positioning of the specimen in all 3 dimensions. Digital images are acquired with a Gatan 2k x 2k slow-scan charged coupled device camera.

Microscopists planning to use this instrument should book sessions in the booking calendar or contact the instrument officer is Juri Barthel. Operation instructions should ideally be given by the instrument officers or very experienced ER-C staff personal.

Users of the Titan-T are kindly asked to quote a technical description of the instrument published in the Journal of large-scale research facilities 2 (2016) A41 when referring to the use of this instrument in publications.

Status

ONLINE

Current issues

• None

Pending issues

• none

Instructions

The operation instructions given below and on the subsequent pages are ment as guidelines and knowledge base. They do not replace the direct introduction to the microscope usage by the instrument officers or your project manager. There are many steps and pitfalls in the operation of this microscope that can seriously harm you or the expensive equipment.

Since the Titan-T is a complex machine, please do not edit the instructions below before discussion the changes with the instrument officers.

Microscope operation

• General instructions
• CETCOR tuning procedures

Knowledge

• Additional technical data
• Tips and tricks
• Known issues
• Magnetic field calibrations

Typical applications and limitations

The configuration of the FEI Titan 80-300 TEM is dedicated to provide optimum performance for high-resolution transmission electron microscopy imaging techniques to be applied to solid state materials. The typical setup used for high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) imaging involves an intentional over-compensation of the intrinsically positive spherical aberration of the objective lens towards a total negative spherical aberration of the imaging system. The negative spherical-aberration imaging (NCSI) technique provides maximum contrast transfer up to the information limit of the instrument yielding bright-atom contrast. The NCSI technique enables on the one hand a more intuitive interpretation of HRTEM images in terms of direct structure projections of e.g. structural defects and interfaces. On the other hand, the superior image contrast at minimum delocalisation allows one to quantify individual atomic displacements with picometre precision from a single image to study for example local electric polarisation phenomena. A further technique applied with this instrument is the reconstruction of the electron wave function based on a focal series of HRTEM images, which allows one to eliminate nonlinear contrast artifacts and residual imaging aberrations from the experimental data.

The FEI Titan 80-300 TEM is not intended for the investigation of aqueous, contaminated, ferromagnetic or organic samples without further discussions with the instrument officers and the ER-C general management.

Specifications

Microscope performance

• Acceleration Voltage: 80 kV up to 300 kV
• Information Limit (TEM)
  • @ 300 kV < 0.8 Å (best measured) --- ~1.1 Å (recent test)
  • @ 200 kV < 0.9 Å (best measured) --- ~1.3 Å (recent test)
  • @ 80 kV < 1.9 Å (best measured) --- ~2.2 Å (recent test)

Detectors

• Gatan UltraScan 1000P (2k x 2k) charge coupled digital camera.

Specimen holders

• FEI piezo stage extension for ultra-precise sample positioning and linear drift compensation
• Double tilt low background holder (α tilt range ± 40°)
• High field of view single tilt holder (α tilt range ± 50°)
• Total system drift < 3 Å/min (rms)

Instrument officers

When opening a service call, refer to tool number D3090.

The instrument officers of the Titan-T are Thibaud Denneulin and Juri Barthel.

Location

Building: 05.2S
Microscope room: 2003a
Operator Phone: +49 2461 61 2402

Tips for users

- No beam

If you have no beam, make sure that the holder is fully inserted. Sometimes it gets stuck before complete insertion. One just need to turn it slightly.