Ohio State Installs Microscope That Can Magnify 30 Million Times

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 22 -- The Ohio State University is one of the first customers in the world to receive a new microscope capable of magnifying up to 30 million times, enabling researchers to examine materials at the atomic scale (sub-angstrom).

The two-ton scanning/transmission electron microscope, called the Titan 80-300 S/TEM, will be used by faculty, students and researchers in the college of engineering and the Ohio State Medical Center to develop computational tools that predict the performance of materials. The Titan 80-300 is the world's highest resolution, commercially available microscope, allowing sub-atomic resolution in both transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) modes, according to manufacturer FEI Co. of Hillsboro, Ore.

Ohio State's new Titan 80-300 scanning/transmission electron microscope can magnify up to 30 million times and cost $3.3 million. (Photo: FEI Co.)

“Things that affect material properties often occur at the atomic scale,” said Hamish Fraser, director of the Center for Accelerated Maturation of Materials (CAMM), where the Titan is located. “This microscope will allow us to get a very accurate physical picture of materials.”

Fraser said he expects the Titan, which was developed in a joint project between FEI and CAMM, to have a significant impact on the research conducted by CAMM, which develops advanced processes and materials that the automotive industry and others use in their products. For example, the researchers in the center are examining two advanced structural materials used in the aerospace industry: titanium alloys used in airframes and jet engines and nickel-based superalloys used in high-temperature applications, such as gas turbine engines.

OSU is one of a select few customers to have the $3.3 million, 4000-lb Titan installed since the product's launch in August. Others include the department of inorganic chemistry and catalysis of the Fritz-Haber Institute in Germany, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in Korea and Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo/IMP in Mexico. Funding for the Titan at OSU was provided by the Ohio Hayes Investment Fund, the Air Force Research Laboratories, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Ohio Board of Regents Action Fund.

For more information, visit: www.osu.edu/CAMM or www.feicompany.com