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[September 2003]
New TEM Reaches 300kV in 3 Minutes
The new PC-controlled H-9500 TEM from Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation (Wokingham, Berks, England) has been designed for rapid operation. With specimen changes in around 1 minute and a stable electron beam at 300kV within just 3 minutes, the instrument is ready for use in less than 5 minutes. The new H-9500 is described as a high performance TEM using a single crystal LaB6 electron source and offers 0.102nm crystal lattice resolution and 0.18nm point-to-point resolution.
Using the Windows(tm) 2000 operating system, the TEM has a simple, icon-driven user interface. In addition to providing a host of automatic functions, the system allows up to 20 sets of operating conditions (lens settings, accelerating voltage etc) to be saved for easy recall. Comprehensive measurement facilities including point-to-point measurement and calliper measurement functions are also included.
The microscope is equipped with a high resolution (1K x 1K pixel) CCD camera with fast or slow scan functions for direct recording of high quality digital images. Naturally images can also be recorded on film in the conventional way.
The instrument features its own image database which allows images to be reviewed through a thumbnail display. A photo log file stores a host of information, including the operating conditions and even the stage coordinates for the image. Using this stored data it is possible to view the same specimen positions simply by recalling the specimen stage coordinates.
In order to allow the operator to immediately see which areas of the specimen have been examined and which have not, a specimen position trace function has been provided. This enables movement of the specimen stage to be tracked and shown on the graphical display. Coordinates may be stored at any position along the movement path.
Hitachi High-Technologies says that the H-9500 offers great flexibility for multi-technique investigations. Specimen holders are available which are completely interchangeable with the FB-2100 focused ion beam instrument and the new HD-2300 STEM.
www.hitachi-hitec-uk.com
ENDS