Delmic launches SPARC 3.0 for faster and automated nanoscale measurements

Delmic has launched SPARC 3.0 at the International Microscopy Congress in Liverpool, UK. The new system automates specialist procedures and can perform certain measurements up to 2.3 times faster than the previous generation. This enables researchers to carry out more measurements and compare results more reliably. According to Delmic, this is necessary to collect sufficient reliable nanoscale data for the development of new materials.

Electron microscopes can reveal details down to the nanometre scale and therefore play an important role in materials research, life sciences and the semiconductor industry. Researchers use cathodoluminescence techniques (in which a material is exposed to electrons and the light it emits is analyzed) for example to understand how new materials are structured and to identify micro-defects that can affect their performance.

The equipment needs to be set up with a high degree of accuracy and requires considerable specialist expertise. Electron microscopy therefore relies heavily on experienced operators and manual data collection, while materials research requires increasingly large volumes of data.

Microscopy and microanalysis points to the same bottleneck: automation can make advanced techniques more accessible, reduce operator influence and enable larger measurement series.

From manual to automated workflows

SPARC 3.0 addresses both of these limitations. The system automates tasks that would normally need to be carried out by experienced users, including aligning and calibrating the components that collect and analyse light emitted by a material. Settings can also be saved and reused. As a result, measurements are less dependent on the individual user and larger series can be carried out under comparable conditions.

The measurements themselves are also faster. With SPARC 3.0, Delmic can perform more than nine spectroscopic measurements per hour, compared with almost four with the previous generation. This allows researchers to collect more data or carry out higher-resolution measurements in the same amount of time. Multiple selected areas of a sample can also be measured automatically in sequence, allowing the system to operate independently for longer.

“In materials research, you want to know whether a difference is genuinely present in the material and not the result of someone setting up the instrument slightly differently,” said Delmic CEO Sander den Hoedt. “By automating these steps, researchers can measure larger series in a consistent way.”

This scale is becoming increasingly important in the development of materials used in computer chips, micro-LEDs, solar cells, electric vehicles, fast chargers and data centres. With new semiconductor materials such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide, researchers need to be able to identify defects, but also determine how frequently they occur and under what conditions.

Automation can also reduce reliance on scarce specialist expertise. By automating more steps, advanced instruments can also be used reliably by less experienced operators.

Two measurement methods in one microscope

SPARC 3.0 also enables research that previously required different measurement setups. An upgrade allows laser light to be directed straight into the electron microscope. Researchers can therefore examine how a material responds to both electrons and light at exactly the same location, without having to move the sample to another instrument.

This allows them to directly compare cathodoluminescence and photoluminescence and carry out new experiments combining light and electron-beam irradiation. This is relevant, among others, to new solar cell materials such as perovskites, materials for quantum technology, light-sensitive organic semiconductors and photocatalysis.

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