About the Facility

The function of the Electron Nanoscopy Instrumentation Facility is to provide hands-on access to electron microscopes, sample preparation equipment plus data collection and data reduction instrumentation, along with advice, training and research collaboration. The scope of the facility is materials characterization of the topography, morphology, elemental composition, crystalline microstructure, crystal defects, and atomic arrangements of materials, largely on a scale from 10 micrometers down to the near-atomic level.

Acknowledgement Text

Agencies including NSF and the University providing partial support of our Nebraska Nanoscale Facilities and NCMN Facilities require that the following words be included at the end of any Acknowledgement section of a paper in which experimental work was done in NNF-NCMN facilities:

The research was performed in part in the Nebraska Nanoscale Facility: National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure and the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (and/or NERCF), which are supported by the National Science Foundation under Award ECCS: 2025298, and the Nebraska Research Initiative.

Equipment

1. FEI Tecnai Osiris (S)TEM

Fully digital 200 kV TEM and STEM system including the HAADF detector X-FEG high-brightness Schottky FEG. Super-X windowless EDX detector and EELS system. Biprism for holography and tomographic holder.

2. FEI Nova NanoSEM450

Field emission SEM with ultra-stable, high-current Schottky gun. Advanced optics and detection, including immersion mode, beam deceleration, ETD-SE, in-lens TLD-SE and BSE for best selection of the information and image optimization.

3. JEOL JEM 2010 TEM

200kV, analytical mode, LaB6 filament, single-tilting and double-tilting sample holders. Gatan Erlangshen CCD camera, TSL texture analysis system.

Users of the facility

The facility is accessible to all qualified researchers at UNL, at other universities and in industrial and other laboratories on payment of the appropriate charges.

Under normal circumstance, these researchers will be expected to have the requisite background knowledge for electron characterization of materials before some training will be given for a particular instrument.

In some cases, research collaboration is possible for common research interests and/or if researchers need the capabilities of the equipment and experienced examination of samples but are unable to use the facilities for themselves. Limited full service handling and examination of materials is available for these researchers according to availability of the facility specialist.