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