August 12, 2011 — FEI Company (NASDAQ:FEIC) released the Titan G2 80-200 scanning/transmission electron microscope (S/TEM) with ChemiSTEM Technology and accelerating voltage range of 200-80kV.

The combination of Titan electron optics with ChemiSTEM Technology analytics allows atomic resolution elemental maps to be created in minutes. New capabilities are also enabled for materials science, chemistry and nanotechnology applications, such as studying atomic species polarity and atomic chemical termination at interfaces, measuring trace elemental concentrations as low as 0.01 wt%, mapping chemical composition over large fields of view, and determining elemental composition in three dimensions.

Sandia National Labs chose the FEI Titan G2 80-200 for its "probe-correction technology and large solid-angle, windowless silicon-drift x-ray detectors (SDDs)," said Dr. Paul Kotula of Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia Labs expects to gain 50 to 100X analytical sensitivity, speed, and spatial resolution improvements over its existing FEG analytical electron microscope. Sandia will use the microscope for atomic resolution x-ray microanalysis as well, studying more of the periodic table and using existing quantification methods to routinely analyze many materials at the highest resolution and sensitivity needed, Kotula adds. Sandia National Laboratory will be the first 80-200 installation in North America.

The Titan G2 platform includes the X-FEG high brightness gun and the next-generation DCOR probe corrector, acheiving spatial resolution of 0.8 Angstroms in STEM and 0.9 Angstroms in TEM, with a large and flexible working sample area. The large tilt-range, when combined with ChemiSTEM Technology’s symetrically distributed 4-SDD detector architecture, permits EDX Tomography. 3D elemental composition can be obtained with standard FIB-prepared lamella samples mounted in standard holders in an S/TEM. High-speed mapping electronics are capable of acquiring 100,000 spectra/second.

Figure. The GaAs [110] dumbbell splitting of 0.14nm is clearly resolved by chemical mapping using energy dispersive x-ray analysis with a Titan G2 80-200 with ChemiSTEM Technology and a probe Cs-corrector at 200 kV acceleration voltage, using a 200 pA probe current. On the right hand side the atomic structure of GaAs the [110] projection is shown along with the grayscale HAADF-STEM image. This represents the highest resolution ever obtained in atomic elemental mapping by any technique using an S/TEM.

FEI (Nasdaq: FEIC) is a scientific instruments company providing electron- and ion-beam microscopes and tools for nanoscale applications. For more information, visit www.fei.com/chemistem.