SBIR Phase II: Optical Delivery System for In Situ Heating and Excitation in the Transmission Electron Microscope

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to develop instrumentation that will allow researchers to elucidate fundamental interactions at the atomic scale that occur at high-temperature and various timescales. From advanced automobile manufacturing to computer chips, virtually all developing technologies require processing materials at high temperatures to enhance their properties. The proposed optical delivery system will enable researchers and manufacturers to efficiently study materials at unprecedented temperature, time, and length scales, and thus bring new products to market faster. Furthermore, the system will provide engineers and scientists a new platform for rapidly advancing emerging technologies that are limited by understanding high-temperature and excited-state materials phenomena. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will design, assemble and test an optical delivery system specifically suitable for nano- and atomic-scale characterization in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). The proposed program will deliver a system with unprecedented ability to efficiently stimulate materials in the TEM via highly-localized photothermal and photoexcited modalities. The photothermal modality will enable agile, non-invasive, and ubiquitous access to TEM specimens, and enable studies of unique temperature and temporal regimes not accessible using standard resistive heating systems. The proposed integrated temperature measurement system will allow closed-loop feedback and control of the precise temperature. The excitation modality will enable researchers to image and characterize optically excited states of materials at the nanoscale. The proposed instrumentation consists of fiber-coupled optical heating and excitation channels positioned by a specially-designed nanomanipulator for accurate x-y-z positioning. In addition to the hardware development, appropriate software controls will be developed for the optical sources and the nanomanipulator system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.