Quantitative Analysis of Nanomaterials with new Automated Techniques in the Electron Microscope

高文小组是世界上在电子显微镜中建立模型和提高对电子束与固体相互作用的理解以开发新的定量方法的领先小组之一。在过去的7年里，高文集团已经发展成为世界上最好的扫描电子显微镜实验室之一，培养了几名获得许多研究奖项的研究生。在这些新的显微镜中，SU-9000是世界上第一台具有30 keV电子能量损失谱（EELS）功能的显微镜。此外，SU-9000 EA在明场STEM成像模式下具有0.2 nm的分辨率，与最昂贵的透射电子显微镜直接竞争。该研究提案旨在通过展示扫描电子显微镜的明显优势以及开发下一代自动化软件和技术来为整个科学界提供负担得起的电子显微镜，以准确分析具有纳米空间分辨率的材料的复杂微观结构，以及在没有操作员的情况下进行电子显微镜常规表征。这些软件将基于创新的电子建模，如Bohmian力学，并将使用人工智能的深度学习技术。将这些新软件与较便宜的扫描电子显微镜一起应用，将使整个科学界真正负担得起电子显微镜。 自动化将为社区提供更多的光束时间，更多的科学将被执行，从而导致更多的材料开发。本项目将培养硕士研究生3名，博士研究生7名。学生和一名博士后。自1990年以来发表的与纳米技术有关的10万多篇科学论文使用了电子显微镜，很明显，电子显微镜的任何进步都将对科学技术产生重大影响。

The Gauvin group is one of the leading groups in the world in modeling and improving the understanding of electron beam interaction with solids for the development of new quantitative methods in the electron microscope. In the last 7 years, the Gauvin Group has developed one of the best laboratories in the world for Scanning Electron Microscopy that led to the training of several graduate students that received many research awards. Among these new microscopes, the SU-9000 is the first in the world to have electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) capabilities at 30 keV. Also, the SU-9000EA has a 0,2 nm resolution in bright field STEM imaging mode, giving a direct competition to the most expensive transmission electron microscopes. This research proposal is to put electron microscopy affordable for the whole scientific community by demonstrating the clear advantages of scanning electron microscopy as well as developing the next generation of automated software and techniques to perform accurate analysis of complex microstructure of materials with nanometer spatial resolution as well as performing electron microscopy without operators for routine characterization. These software's will be based on innovative electron modelling, like Bohmian Mechanics, and also will use the Deep Learning techniques of Artificial Intelligence. Applying these new software's with the less expensive scanning electron microscopes will make electron microscopy truly affordable for the whole scientific community. Automation will give more beam time to the community and more science will be performed leading to more materials development. This project will train 3 master students, 7 Ph.D. students and one postdoc. Since more than 100 000 scientific paperspublished since 1990 and related to nanotechnology used an electron microscope, it is clear that any advance in electron microscopy will have a significant impact in science and technology.