Technical Univ. of Denmark Orders FEI Microscopes

The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has placed a $11.5 million dollar order for seven FEI microscopes that will be the basis of the university’s new Center for Electron Nanoscopy (CEN). FEI Co., based in Hillsboro, Ore., makes transmission electron microscopes (TEMs) and scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) and components. The order, which the company said is its largest to date, includes two Titan S/TEMs, a Tecnai 20S-Twin TEM, a Helios NanoLab 600 DualBeam, a Quanta 200 3D ESEM DualBeam, a Quanta FEG SEM and an Inspect S low-vacuum SEM. One of the Titan S/TEMs will be equipped with an environmental chamber and will be used in a collaboration between DTU and FEI to advance environmental TEM applications for in-situ catalyst observations. Those studies will have a role in catalyst research and development in alternative fuel cell, environmental catalysis and petrochemical industry applications. Rafal Dunin-Borkowski, director of the new center, said one of the Titans will combine aberration correction and monochromation with the ability to introduce gases into an electron microscope, which will allow catalyst materials to be studied in their working environment with ultimate spatial resolution. Installation is targeted for the second half of 2007. The Center for Electron Nanoscopy is scheduled to open at the university, in Lyngby, Denmark, at the end of 2007.