Nion UltraSTEM users and Nion staff met in scenic Banff, Canada on May 23, 2009 for a Nion users' meeting. The meeting followed the very successful EDGE conference and was attended by representatives from all the Nion microscope labs and the core of the Nion R&D team.

Nion users demonstrated results from their microscopes and provided valuable feedback to the Nion team for improving its products. The users also shared tips and tricks for getting the best results from Nion microscopes and forged future collaborations. Nion demonstrated upcoming designs and developments, and discussed some of the finer points of getting the best out if its dedicated STEMs.

There is a clear need for an online forum for continuing the stimulating discussions started at the meeting, to promote future dialogue about Nion instruments and their scientific capabilities, and to serve as a resource for providing feedback and troubleshooting advice. If you are a Nion user, please join this exciting new community and share your perspectives and experiences: Nion Users Group.

Making a great electron microscope even better is a collective effort, made possible by the feedback we receive from the users of Nion microscopes. To encourage the feedback, at the beginning of each new year, Nion gives an award to the author of the most relevant and useful user feedback.

The winner for 2008 was announced on January 16: Dr. Michael Walls of CNRS Orsay. He received an iPod touch and a message of congratulations. The picture shows him with his iPod, in front of the control center of the Orsay UltraSTEM.

CNRS Orsay held an inauguration ceremony for Nion UltraSTEM installed in March 2008. The event, which included a one-day scientific symposium on "A new vision for electron microscopy in materials science", was attended by about 200 scientists. A red-white-blue ribbon across the door to the microscope lab was cut jointly by C. Bréchignac (Présidente of CNRS), A. Bersellini (Présidente of Université Paris-Sud), M. Berson (Président du Conseil Général de l'Essonne) and C. Colliex (Director of Research at CNRS Orsay).

Analytical Chemistry, the principal journal of the American Chemical Society, has published a brief article describing results obtained with the Nion UltraSTEM™100 and its history. The popular-level article features several interesting statements by leading electron microscopists.

The Nion UltraSTEM™ 100, recently delivered to Cornell University, has produced atomic-resolution EELS elemental maps of Ti, Mn and La in a multilayer perovskite sample.  The net acquisition time for all the maps (shown at left) was 28 s. The statistical quality of the maps was such that changes in the chemical bonding of atoms in different locations could be discerned from the fine features in the spectra.  These capabilities are unprecedented – atomic resolution elemental maps have typically required tens of minutes or hours to record in other microscopes, and no bonding information was available in the maps. See Muller et al. (Science 2008, February 22 issue) for full details.

Left: Atomic-resolution EELS chemical maps of La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO₃ / SrTiO₃ acquired by the UltraSTEM100