Ultra-Low Temperature Liquid Helium Side Entry Electron Microscopy Holder

To exploit future quantum computing technologies, it is critical to image quantum processes in materials at high atomic resolution and at low temperatures (between 4 and 70 Kelvin) in the transmission electron microscope (TEM). Current instruments aimed at performing this task are both lacking the imaging stability to get good high-resolution images and intimidating/complex to use, which has severely limited their accessibility to researchers and subsequently minimized their impact on science. Both the DOE and the research community in the quantum field have expressed a need for an easy-to-use and highly stable liquid helium-cooled TEM sample holder in order for the fundamental atomic-level physics of quantum systems to be understood and exploited. In response to this need, Hummingbird Scientific has successfully developed, prototyped, and tested new liquid helium (LHe) cooled side-entry holder with in-situ biasing capabilities to demonstrate proof-of-concept in Phase I. Our design is aimed at making LHe temperature imaging and in-situ experimentation more accessible by reducing cooldown times, simplifying biasing connections, and improving sample stability, and thus imaging conditions. Our Phase I results demonstrate that our design can successfully deliver the core capabilities of the product, i.e., extended thermal stability at ~10 Kelvin, electrical biasing, and high-resolution imaging stability. Based on these results, Hummingbird Scientific will in Phase II further develop and commercialize this technology into an advanced LHe cryo/biasing TEM specimen holder with the following features and capabilities: (1) an easy-to-use and reliable electrical stimulus to the sample, (2) double-tilt (α-tilt and β-tilt control) mechanism to orient the sample in several crystallographic facets for structural mapping, (3) Stepwise variable temperature control, and (4) long imaging time (> 1 hour) at high atomic resolution imaging mode. When commercialization efforts of these in-situ TEM systems succeed as expected, these methods will become widely available to researchers for understanding interactions over a heretofore-unexplored range of materials and temperatures for these electronic material systems. This will have a direct positive and accelerating effect on commercial electronic device development as well as on the production of next-generation electronic and quantum computing devices.