Texas Instruments donates
$2 million microscope to Argonne
Texas Instruments (TI) has donated a $2 million scanning electron microscope to Argonne materials scientist Nestor Zaluzec to support the laboratory's research in nanoscale characterization. TI used the microscope to perform critical dimension measurements of semiconductor devices. After purchasing a new instrument, TI wanted to donate their surplus microscope to a research program that would potentially benefit the company as well as semiconductor makers and researchers in general. Zaluzec, renowned for his state-of-the-art work in microstructural characterization of materials using electron microscopy, was the perfect match. "This is a win-win situation," said Zaluzec. "The new microscope will allow me to explore new areas in material characterization and should TI need help characterizing a semiconductor problem, I'd be more than happy to return the favor." In nanoscale characterization, researchers seek to determine the relationship between a material'sproperties and its structure. This can, in many cases, be done by looking for changes or unique arrangements in the morphological, crystallographic, elemental, chemical or electronic structure of the materials using an electron microscope. Zaluzec plans to spend about a year converting the microscope to a more useful form for his research interests. This will require, among other things, developing new stages (platforms that hold specimens), lenses and detectors. Zaluzec also plans to upgrade the instrument so it can be used for "telepresence" work, a technology pioneered at Argonne. The conversion will allow researchers to conduct microscopy studies via the World Wide Web. They can control the microscope, focus on real-time images of the samples, interact with other, geographically distant researchers and consult with experts while conducting research. These studies will procced in conjunction with a collaborative research program with the Nanoscale Metrology group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology headed by Michael Postek and also with Marylyn Bennett at TI's KFab. This joint effort will identify key issues criticial to the semiconductor industry as well as collaborate on the instrument development via TelePresence. With more than 200 different programs in basic and applied research, Argonne is one of the nation's largest federally funded scientific laboratories. Argonne is is operated by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy. For more information, please contact Linda Wang (630/252-7997 or wang@anl.gov) at Argonne. |
